


Before We Were Us, Before I Was Me

by fairmanor



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alexis Rose Being a Good Sister, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, David Rose Being a Good Brother, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jewish David Rose, Lovers to Exes to Friends to Lovers, M/M, New York AU, Not Canon Compliant, Reconciliation, Rose Apothecary (Schitt's Creek), Slow Burn, They never got back together after 4x09, history repeats itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24902902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor
Summary: ‘While you’re out getting lunch, do you think – do you think you could get me some lunch?’David wasn’t sure what had done it, wasn't sure at all whether his final words had really had any contribution to that look on Patrick's face. It was a small thing to say, really, and it was so, so stupid, but something had broken in there. Some unfamiliar darkness had flooded Patrick’s eyes like the cracking of a black glowstick, releasing a cavern of hurt and vulnerability that David had never seen before.‘…Unbelievable.’And then he was gone. In his better moments, David was almost glad. It meant he never had to see that look again.What if David and Patrick never got back together after 'The Olive Branch'?
Relationships: Alexis Rose & David Rose, Patrick Brewer & Alexis Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose
Comments: 235
Kudos: 248





	1. If I Go, I'm Goin'

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! I really hope you enjoy this fic. I'm not entirely sure how long it's going to be, but I feel like I'm really gonna enjoy writing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Hey! I'm adding this note while I'm currently five chapters into writing, and just wanted to reiterate that the angst is STRONG in this fic.

‘David, wake up.’

‘Mm, what?’

‘Oh my God, David, we’re meant to be going _now!_ Get out of bed!’

David awoke to a sharp tug, a bite of fresh air and a soft _whump_ as Alexis pulled his bedspread away. He curled in against the cold, but still tried to prop himself up on his elbow. Alexis was right. They really did have to go now.

‘Fuck. What time is it?’

‘Five. The time we _both said we’d be up.’_

David grumbled for half a moment more then launched himself out of bed before his body could protest. As he stumbled over his already-packed bags to the bathroom, Alexis flew around their tiny motel room, checking in nooks and crannies for stray possessions. David huffed a small, mirthless laugh through his nose as he watched her. Room 5 of the Rosebud Motel was half a shoe closet in their old home, and now Alexis was really checking to see if they’d missed anything in the corners of it.

As though he knew he wouldn’t have enough time in the morning, David had spent all of yesterday evening taking in the sight of the room.

‘Ew, David! We’ve been trapped in here for five years, and you want to spend your whole night looking at it?’ Alexis had said. But he hadn’t had the energy for some stinging retort, so he said nothing. He still didn’t say anything when he realised Alexis had been on a walk instead of going to The Wobbly Elm with Twyla, like she said she would. She had come back sober and puffy-eyed.

He couldn't imagine spending his last night any other way. He had looked at this room every single day for the past five years, but it had been a while since he'd really _seen_ it. It had taken about two years for David to get used to living in Schitt’s Creek with an attitude that resembled something beyond unwilling tolerance. The first time he felt it was the night after Sebastien. David had tucked his bedspread a little higher that night and grounded himself in the feeling of it. The soft down of the blanket that he lay his hand atop gently. The musky, wooden scent of his bedside table. The hollow, rhythmic clunk of the water pipes cooling down. It had been nice to feel small and unseen, when what had happened that night was so confusing and devastatingly reminiscent of the person he once was. He swallowed down the bitter taste of being used and thought about nothing but his single bed in their little motel room. If he fantasised hard enough, he could picture all the other things that might have made living here even more tolerable. With the right chords on the right guitar, the right blue button-downs, the right business-savvy snark, he might have even been convinced to stay.

But that person didn’t exist. They’d never had the chance.

The ride to the airport was filled with the same heavy silence that had engulfed the motel the night that Johnny and Moira left a week ago. The air was gritty and cracked with the faintest hint of a new dawn, the day promising to be slightly cooler than the one before. The night had been hot and stuffy, just like their first fitful sleep here. David wondered what everyone would be doing. The weather was better; maybe Ronnie would get started on those beets she'd been planning on growing. He forced himself to think about the town some more, scratching through the dust for semblances of fondness, but since last week things had felt even more lonely and surreal. Their parents' farewell had had all the disassociated affection of a family who didn’t know what to think. They were four people stranded and abandoned by fate, chewed up and spit out over the ends of the earth, scratching together a new living that they were grateful didn’t mirror their old life yet didn’t quite carry all the nostalgia and hope of leaving behind a home that would always be there. Returning to Schitt’s Creek would, for all of them, take some guts.

When Johnny, Stevie and Roland had made traction with the motel business and given them an out, it was without question that David would go with Alexis to New York. He had negotiated with a number of independent vendors over the past couple of months and was _just_ financially ready to up his sticks and hand over the Schitt’s Creek branch of Rose Apothecary to the fumbling hands to an overenthusiastic young couple who promised to call David with updates far more often than he was comfortable with. Even so, he welcomed the sharing of the load that had felt a little too heavy for someone with such a passion over the past two years. Handling business finance had the same panicked, deadline feeling as college homework, only this time the results actually mattered.

It had been hard to juggle both the creative and business side of Rose Apothecary for the last two years, but something like spite and a little too much like desperation had kept him going. For a minute, he had a vague, unapproachable young adult in his employ, someone fresh out of a finance degree that he clearly had no business taking. David faintly recognised him from some failed pep talk that Jocelyn had made him give in his first few months in Schitt’s Creek. Firing him was more like reaching a mutual agreement. David had barely given him an explanation, and the kid just nodded in the first solidarity they’d shown each other in months, took his bag, and noped out. Johnny had called him foolish for letting him go. Little did he know that David had given up on trying to stop people from going.

* * *

‘I’m going to the duty free, want anything?’

‘God, no. Who do you think I am, a jetlagged middle-aged businesswoman?’

But David still grabbed Alexis’ wrist as she turned away. ‘If they have any BBQ chips, though…’

There was something about airports that David had always liked. There had been pieces of him in every corner of North America in his old life, every state on this damn continent in holiday homes and acquaintances and PO Boxes. Airports were literally between worlds, and if David Rose wanted to sit on the floor at 6:30 wearing chunky FILAs and sip on white hot chocolate, then David Rose would damn well sit on the floor at 6:30 wearing chunky FILAs and sip on white hot chocolate. The passing feet and rolling of suitcase wheels had no idea who he was, nor did they notice. Not one bit. Only Alexis could see him, and she didn’t really count.

There was also something about them that David did not like. In his old life, they’d brought just as much uncertainty and anguish as they had cathartic nonsense hours. Airports were Alexis stumbling into his arms from customs, they were holding back rough tears as he waited to meet people who would never show, they were clambering half-high into private jets to fly to island resorts where he knew at least one person would try and bet on his body. It embarrassed him to think that he once assumed everyone cared, but he had quickly learned that normal people saw airports as elevated levels of existence where anything you did or said simply dissolved into the off-white linoleum. For a place so big, they really were cramped with the deepest of thoughts. 

He sat and waited for Alexis and his BBQ chips, steeped in a solid mix of both of these feelings. He took a long gulp of his sickly drink and thought about everything that had led him here, all the fated flaps of butterfly wings that had kept him up at night for the past two years and frustrated him beyond comprehension. It sent him almost delirious to think, now, that things could have been so different. That things _had_ been so different. He thought about all the things his person could have been to him; what would they have done? Would they have recovered from that fight, and perhaps had another one somewhere down the line about housewarming parties or hiking or spray tans or –

David felt the sharp thwap of aluminium-plastic catch his cheekbone.

‘They didn’t have any BBQ, so I got you cheese & jalapeno instead.’

David nodded in thanks. Alexis sat herself down on the double-sided metal bench opposite the wall David was crouched against, talking to their dad over the phone about the best strategies for keeping business up whilst dealing with major personal upheavals. He sat back and listened, astonished at the logical, proactive woman his sister had become.

The snips of advice he caught through the speaker – Johnny had yelled down the phone ever since David had taught him how to use one – put his own coping methods to shame, that was for sure. He sometimes felt like no one knew what it meant to deal with major personal upheavals whilst running a business. Like no one had the right to even mention it.

David had shut the store for two weeks in shock when it happened. He'd told his vendors to cut back their stock and he'd wandered Schitt’s Creek like a shark that would die if it stopped swimming. He had to do _something,_ but it couldn’t be the business he’d hoped to keep forever with one of his best friends. So he just walked, walked around like Alexis had on their last night. There was something about the town that haunted them all a little differently; they all had their ghosts there, the unharvested grains of a life almost lived.

He had tried being angry about it to see if it was easier. Typical Patrick, always running away from his problems. Typical Patrick, too nice to have the ugly conversations. Too fucking beautiful to have anything ugly in his life. Maybe that’s why he left – _nope. We’re not going there again, David, we’re better than that._

It was Stevie who’d first said that to him, and she hadn’t let him forget it. She’d let him cry until he was sick on her shoes sometimes, though.

_‘While you’re out getting lunch, do you think – do you think you could get me some lunch?’_

David wasn’t sure what had done it, wasn’t sure at all whether his final words had really had any contribution to that look on Patrick's face. It was a small thing to say, really, and it was so, _so_ stupid, but something had broken in there. Some unfamiliar darkness had flooded Patrick’s eyes like the cracking of a black glowstick, releasing a cavern of hurt and vulnerability that David had never seen before.

_‘…Unbelievable.’_

And then he was gone. In his better moments, David was almost glad. It meant he never had to see that look again.


	2. All the Talk of the Things We Planned to Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Title is from Noah Reid's 'Road Again'.

Unsurprisingly, the right nightlife for lonely Canadian expats in New York was not hard to come by. And by ‘right’ nightlife, they all implicitly agreed that it wasn’t the actual appeal of the individual bars that had drawn them in. There were so many ruddy, wooden holes-in-the-wall with low hanging Edison bulbs and the sweetened scent of honey nut and whiskey baked into the air that it almost felt disingenuous. If it looked something like the lovechild of a fishing hut, a Midwestern thrift store and an early 2000s Christian music video, it was probably modestly bustling with outlanders looking for something to feel. Eventually, they would all end up ensnared by something that tasted a little too much like home, yet there was an ironic gap inside them where the nostalgia should have been nestled. Ask any of them, and they’d tell you that any of the shabby chic joints in the entire city could have become their local, if they’d happened to walk into it first.

Would it have been so difficult to prevent settling into a routine? Well…once a small-town thinker, always a small-town thinker. You learned to find a bubble, to find your people. You learned that happiness came from Hallmark doses of rustic weddings and volunteering at the ranch on Saturdays. You learned it so well that, when you left, you leaned into the comfort of the smallest, absurdest things. Like the clicking of the ice in your whiskey glass, knowing the world would only keep going once you’d reached the end of your drink. The _woosh_ of your card in the subway that meant you were a step closer to texting your mom goodnight.

 _The_ _Smoke Kitchen_ was ever so slightly more itself tonight. There were a few more coasters laid out – they had the Canadian flag on, the red a shade darker than the original – and a new display of photographs of hockey teams from the 1910s. Its patrons were just as subdued as ever, less inclined to a ruckus in the absence of in-season sports on the bar TV. Sometimes, someone’s hometown would be playing. It was hard to distinguish who they were, or why the match was even televised; the purpose of it was never clear, but if there was anything below a minor league that had managed to stretch its budget to a decent-quality recording of the match, then that was it. Whoever-it-was would make it abundantly clear that there was a part of them on that screen, acknowledging their first-name basis with half the team members as though there was something in that to show off about. But tonight, there was no game. The regular haunters of _The_ _Smoke Kitchen_ were sat in silence with only the thoughts of why they were even sat there to begin with, drinking in the cold New York fall, and not sewn into the legacy of their hometowns. Reminded of all the things they would never do. All the red-headed girls they would never marry.

‘You played well tonight.’

Another familiar routine: lift the glass, bartender sweeps the cloth. Glass back down. Smile.

‘Thanks,’ said the man at the bar. He always said thanks.

‘Was that another original? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.’

He nodded. ‘Mm-hm. They seem to be flying out these days.’

Rahim, the bartender, smiled. ‘I’m still working my way through those tracks you sent me. My partner walked in on me crying over my laptop the other day.’

The man laughed; a genuine laugh, one he hadn’t heard out his own mouth for a few months. ‘That bad, huh?’

Rahim played along and fake-balked. ‘A steaming pile, every one of ‘em.’ Then he schooled his expression and leaned down, his fingertips pressed into either side of the bar. ‘But seriously, man, you’re good. You have some story to tell, Patrick Brewer.’

Patrick shrugged. The corner of his mouth upturned. ‘Could always be more to it.’

That’s what he had told himself as he was slowly spun into the eternal knot of flighty young adults who seemed to be permanently running away from something, too scared to stick around when they found something worth running toward. Much like when he came to Schitt’s Creek, Patrick felt a strange sense of power when he moved to New York. He took what he thought was a thorough look at his life from a God’s-eye view and told himself this would be it; this would be where he found himself. He settled into a routine of weekend whiskey, open mics and occasional smokes that filled him with a juvenile sense of edginess. He found a stable job. He got used to the concept of disposable intimacy. That last one was the one that stung the most. He didn’t think he could ever be tuned into the idea of single-use people, throwing them away with the condom wrapper in the morning. It was too unlike what he knew. It didn’t make anything feel right. _What makes me feel right? You make me feel right. You do. And you’re gone._

_No, you’re not gone. I am._

_‘While you’re out getting lunch, do you think – do you think you could get me some lunch?’_

What had happened? What on earth had gotten into him? He was half – no, _all_ sure that it had nothing to do with David, but he’d felt it like a rupture inside him. Ripped like paper, bleeding fast, he’d ducked out of the livelihood they’d started to build and never looked back. Even when he returned to collect the belongings he’d left behind in the store, David wasn’t there. He didn’t see anyone except Ray, whose placid commiserations were just about all he could stomach as far as reactions went. It was as though Schitt’s Creek was a pop-up fantasy, something he’d dreamed about in a motel on his way from home. As though he’d been on his way to New York the whole time.

_‘…Unbelievable.’_

And then he was gone. In his worse moments, Patrick was almost glad. It confused him, but it was better than feeling nothing at all.

* * *

David and Alexis’s flight landed in New York at 10am after an hour’s delay. They had their suitcases and a scrap of paper with the addresses of their apartment, Alexis’s business and, if all went well, the new Rose Apothecary. Alexis had drawn the long straw and managed to bag herself an office that was a two minutes’ walk away from their new place. David had begged for it, but Johnny had reminded him that there wasn’t any current need for Rose Apothecary to have a dedicated office space. He’d have to dig himself out a chunk of this exhausting, formidable labyrinth of a city with his bare hands, like Meg Ryan in _You’ve Got Mail._ He half hoped some hot corporate owner would open up across the road, then he remembered that that would literally send him into poverty. David felt a little ridiculous looking up at the skyline out of Grand Central Terminal like some plucky young student in a coming-of-age movie, but then Alexis took his hand and he took hers and he didn’t want to say anything about it. They were doing this together, and they were doing this alone.

Their nearest takeout was a British one called O’Finnegan’s. They sat against their suitcases on the apartment floor and ate shepherd’s pie and sticky toffee pudding and tried to get accustomed to the frenzied flow of the traffic outside their second-floor window. After five years in the ass end of hick country with barely enough light pollution to cover the Milky Way, it was practically deafening.

‘What do you think I should wear this week?’ David said. ‘For my meeting thing.’

They’d been trading quiet nothings like that for the past three hours, coloring in their unspoken fear with the softest, most trivial exchange of words possible.

Alexis took a bite of pudding. ‘Dad always said, like, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” or something cheesy like that. Like, you never know who could be sizing you up, so you have to be ready for it.’ She wiggled her fingers and gave her bizarre little half-wink like it was a salacious date rather than a consultation about opening up a second business location.

David scoffed, thinking about _Entertainment Weekly_ and unfortunate Getty Images forever trapped at the top of a Google search. ‘Yeah, well, the thing about being David Rose is that you don’t get to give first impressions. Everyone already has a second and third and fourth one before you even open your mouth.’

‘Ugh, don’t be so dramatic, David. You’ve never even lived here.’

‘Um, hello? I spent most of my twenties living here.’

Alexis gave him _the look._ ‘Yeah, but did you really, though?’

David stuffed his mouth with pudding at that to give himself time to think. Physically, yes, David _had_ lived here, smothered by the sharp vogue of his blindingly white apartment with the angled ceiling that he had still hit his head on to the very last day. But _the look_ had taught him that he had merely been existing there, his body a place David Rose hadn’t been seen in for a very long time. _The look_ was something borne out of Schitt’s Creek, a bitter and silent tribute to their old life and the gratefulness they had developed for it being over. Well, not so much a tribute. It was more of a good-riddance; a piss-on-the-grave. _The look_ might have been a reaction to the last remnants of drug dependency leaving their system, or perhaps it was the town itself, but it had been ingrained deep enough to outlast their time there. It was self-awareness, and it was humbling; it was like the opposite of climbing to the top of the social ladder, but with the same amount of gratification and achievement.

‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

‘Wear something boring. The most businessy shirt you have. Ooh, that little blue number will do.’

They went shopping the next day anyway, since Alexis had immediately decided that ‘will do’ wasn’t a good enough response on her part. Alexis’s temporary income plan that she kept stored in the notes on her phone ruled out about 80% of the stores in their area, but they knew they didn’t have enough time or air in their apartment to complain. Like with the motel room, David thought it was nice having bits of the world ruled off. He was carrying his own gentle portion of things in cupped hands; no longer tied bare to the bow of a limitless ship, pushed by the world to ridicule and discomfort in any which way he could afford. 20% of stores was good enough for both of them.

‘How about this one?’

David ducked out of the changing room for the fifth time. Alexis tilted her head, hands coming to rest at a floppy angle as she appraised him. She looked at him silently for a long time.

David sighed. ‘Can you give me a –’

‘Nope.’

‘No again?’

‘Sorry, David, these are just…’ Alexis scrunched up her fingers and waved them around the general vicinity of the outfit. It was a black-and-gold damask shirt with a double-breasted overcoat and lightly pinstriped jeans.

‘It’s just got…I don’t know, Jack Sparrow vibes.’

‘What does that even _mean?’_

Alexis groaned in frustration. ‘None of these are working for me. You should just buy some cheap pants and wear that blue shirt you have.’

David yanked the dressing room curtain back round him, peeling off the offending pirate-like outfit. Did new couture sit so wrong on David after five seasons out of the loop? Since when did David wear _blue_ , anyway?

Oh. That’s when.

Truth be told, he wouldn’t have said he _had_ the shirt. It had been folded in with his knits for the past two years in the cedar chest Mutt made him, but he had never worn it. For some inexplicable reason, he had rescued it from irreversible crumpling on the bedroom floor at Ray’s and never given it back. The thing was, Patrick never had a chance to question where it had gone. Two days later, Rachel had turned up. One week after that, a million futures died. There wasn’t much a blue shirt could do to keep them tethered down.

Later that night, they picked up another order from O’Finnegans – fish and chips this time – which was shaping up to be a surprisingly good takeout place. David washed his hands thoroughly of the salt and grease before picking the blue shirt out of his suitcase. He checked that Alexis’s shower water was still running strongly before bringing the thing to his nose and burying his face in it.

_Bad idea._

The wooden chest had done a good job of protecting his knits, but an even better job of locking in the smell of this thing. The soft, muted sandalwood and geranium brought him straight back to body milks and open mics and fumbling hands in the breakroom that came to a breathy halt when the bell above the door jangled. Had it really only been four months? It had felt like four hours. It had felt like four lifetimes.

David pulled it away from his face, chest fluttering as he sighed. It was just a shirt. Just a modestly priced, badly blended cotton shirt. Alexis was right; it would do.

* * *

David tried desperately to ignore the aching scent that would waft up whenever a nearby door opened or someone breezed past in the long waiting room of the consultant’s building. _Advice Alliance_ had seemed a decent enough company, one Johnny had picked out for him and set him up a meeting with a couple of months ago.

‘David Rose?’

David looked up. A pale, sharply dressed assistant was stood in front of him.

‘I’m here to escort you to your meeting,’ she said, handing him a ticket.

David looked down at the glossy stub in his hand. B13. _Oh, fuck off._

He was taken up two floors via elevator and down to the very end of a long hallway. Why was it getting smaller? David glanced outside for a look at the skyline, but the yellow-grey waft of pollution in the air and concrete maze did nothing for him. He felt like that, suffocated and panicked and not sure why, until the assistant stopped them outside the last door and knocked.

‘Come in.’

_Wait..._

_What._

The assistant took the handle for him. David was glad. He didn’t think he’d have the motor skills himself.

The door opened.

_Nope._

_Nope._

_Definitely no motor skills._

_No nothing._

_Head empty._

_Fuck._

David must have been moving because before he knew it, he was seated opposite his new business consultant. The assistant was saying something. It came to his ears like she was screaming through a rush of water. Then the door clicked shut, she was gone, and now it was someone’s turn to say something.

Maybe he would ask David for his shirt back.


	3. You Can Have My Money, Don't Take My Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Just to clarify, all of the addresses in this fic are fake. I just made 'em up as I went along.
> 
> \- Title and Patrick's 'original' song lyrics are both from Noah Reid's 'Angels and Demons'.
> 
> \- The next chapter will be like a reversal of this one. This is David's POV for the morning, Patrick's on the night, then the next will be a vice versa of the same day.

_Fuck._

_Oh, fuck._

It was all David could think, amidst a sea of other expletives that he couldn’t bring himself to dedicate any mental energy to. His head was a soup of curses and disbelief and blue fucking shirts.

_You’re here. I’m here. And I’m wearing your shirt. I am literally wearing your shirt._

Had Patrick looked up when he came in? David had been too shellshocked to notice. Either way, he wasn’t looking now. He was tapping at the computer on his desk. David thought he saw him shift for just a second; a minute flex of the fingers, a roll of the shoulder.

 _Or maybe not._ _Head still too empty._

Then, Patrick – _no, your business consultant,_ David corrected himself – looked up. Looked him straight in the eye.

Between making distant mental notes to tell his father to research the consultants he was booking with next time, David analysed his appearance from across the desk that felt both miles and millimeters long.

He’d grown his hair out. The no-nonsense trim that David always wished he could run his fingers through had been buzzed a little shorter on the sides and left to grow on top. The darker, glossier undersides of the top curls (that looked like they could be grabbed with one hand - _shut up, David -_ indicated that some kind of product had been mussed through them that morning. On the wrong person he supposed it would have looked ridiculous, but Patrick was absolutely not the wrong person.

A black shirt he’d buttoned all the way up was rolled to his elbows. The corners of its collar were coated with slips of gold metal, like the ends of shoelaces. David thought he detected the trace of a tan just below where the sleeve stopped. Where had he been? Did he spend a lot of time outside?

He was wearing glasses. Square and elegant and black-rimmed. Had he always worn glasses? Contacts, maybe. Maybe one day they would have reached a stage where Patrick allowed David to see him with his glasses. Maybe it would have been in the early morning, when Patrick had stayed over and his contact lenses dried out. Maybe he would have begged David not to look, but not too seriously, and David would have pulled him back onto the bed and told him how cute they were. It wouldn’t have been at the motel. No, by that point David would have found somewhere else. Somewhere just big enough for the two of them. There was a little house on the outskirts of town that had always reminded David of–

_Stop. You’re being creepy._

But damn it…Patrick looked _good._

There was a flicker of recognition behind Patrick’s eyes, and David was glad he didn’t try to hide it. But that was all it seemed to be. Recognition. He pushed a slip of paper towards David with the minimal info that Johnny must have given to whom he thought was a generic _Advice Alliance_ employee and not someone who he’d referenced with loud, unsolicited regret to David continually over the past two years.

‘It’s a shame,’ he always said. _I know, Dad_. ‘Now see, he, he was a good one, was Patrick.’ _I know, Dad_.

His dad’s initials – J. R.– were there in place of David’s name. David’s mouth quirked at the thought of his dad struggling with AutoFill on the company website. He scratched it out and replaced it with his own.

Patrick cleared his throat. ‘If all your other info checks out, we’ll start. Name of the business?’

David bristled in his chair. ‘I think you already know what the–’

‘Just answer the question, David.’

David blinked. What was _that?_ Well, now he had no doubt that he’d been recognised. No stranger in the world, especially not one he was about to start working with, would talk to him like that.

So _that’s_ how he wanted to play, was it? Right. That was fine. David had played it well enough with a good half of the people he’d ever met. Dancing through the motions of a petty game, toeing around the hot coals, was how you stopped yourself getting burned. _You never get a second chance to make a first impression. What a load of bullshit._

‘Name of the business,’ Patrick repeated.

‘Rose Apothecary.’

Patrick stirred a little at that, like he was hearing the name of an old friend. He paused a moment, then shook his head like he was shaking off water. ‘And…address of the busi–’

‘66 North Constitution Street, The Meadows, NY, 11364.’

Not a _beat._

Why David felt proud, like he was grasping some invisible upper hand, he did not know. But he couldn’t stop now.

‘And can you give me a brief description of the –’

‘A curation of selected products from local vendors to be sold on consignment in a one-stop-shop retail environment that benefits both the vendor and the customer.’

David stared hard at Patrick. He tipped his chin up a little, revelling in his own articulacy, and Patrick stared back. It was beyond recognition now; he was looking _through_ him, working between the lines. David could almost see him thumbing through the pages of the time they had lost, attempting to work out where David had been, what he was doing, how on earth he had ended up _here,_ of all places, with the _same fucking ticket number as last time, so help them fate._ Or perhaps they were just David’s thoughts, so strong they felt like they had a body of their own, spiralling around the room as the tension pulled tighter and the walls closed in, trapping what little heat there was and snapping it aflame.

Then Patrick clicked his pen and returned his focus to his computer screen, and the room went cold.

‘If that’s all there is to declare with no changes, I think we’re done. If you can send me the details of the new manager at the first store, I’ll be in touch about business branching and financial viability.’

David felt his mouth parch. They really had just been his thoughts. Was that _it?_ After two years, he sends him off with a shuffle of papers and a curt nod?

David stood up. He wasn’t aware of how forceful he’d been until he heard the screech of the chair legs. He tucked it in more gently. For a second, Patrick’s gaze zeroed in on David’s shirt.

_I’m still wearing it, aren’t I?_

_I. Am. Literally. Wearing. Your. Shirt._

‘Was there anything else you wanted to…go over?’ David said. He’d felt confident saying it, but it came out weak and cracked.

There was a moment of silence. ‘No.’

‘And you’ll be in touch –’

‘I _just_ said that.’

David felt his chest constrict. He hadn’t even finished.

‘…When. I was going to say, _when?’_

Patrick looked down. David had never felt so confused in his entire life. His ex-boyfriend’s face was at war with itself, an apparent lifetime of emotions coursing through his brow and the twitching muscles in his jaw.

‘Within the week,’ Patrick said quietly.

David inhaled deeply, then nodded. Much like when he had arrived, he could barely remember leaving the office. He remembered the other side of the door, though. It clicked shut and he leaned against it, pressing his ear to the PVC somewhat pathetically to listen out for noises.

Silence.

There was no assistant to escort him back down. The way the corridor seemed to slope made David feel like he was scaling the building and falling off it at the same time. He needed water. The moment he stepped away from the door, his throat grew sore and tight and he felt a sob building behind his clenched teeth. But he would _not_ cry. There was nothing to cry about. He hadn’t cried when that billionaire heiress had filled a restaurant with photographers and paid the waiter $100 to spill a drink on him. He hadn’t cried when Sebastien had referred to his own cheating as a ‘character building experience for you, David’. So why would he cry about the sight of someone he’d known for six months, two years ago? Someone who walked out on their business venture without so much as a drink for the road?

**David Rose**

Stevie I’m fuckign shaking

**Stevie Budd**

??

What’s up

**David Rose**

I just saw him

**Stevie Budd**

Who??

Wait…

WHAT.

**David Rose**

My reaction precisely

I’ll facetime you when I get back but I just

HNngn. hfhgrhghrf

**Stevie Budd**

In a meeting rn but I’ll be available in like an hour.

Best best best wishes

**David Rose**

<3

* * *

There was something about Broadway in the fall that was charged and full-bodied and impossible to ignore. The lights that methodically flashed around square signs were never so daring as to sink into the mellow wash of river and sky. All day and night they blinked, hard and saturated, against the timeless stone of iconic theatres, immortalised in a thousand pictures above the outstretched arms of a thousand drama majors. Curling round the corners were perhaps the luckiest food vendors in the world, cashing in buckets on bubble waffles and pistachio ice cream and Moroccan fusion at a rate only somewhat disproportionate to the quality of their goods. It was pouring with abstract simplicity, a beating heart of a place basking in the last scraps of summer heat. Centuries were packed into this street. Years of human survival in this city, forever sculpted at the core with the vital preservation of entertainment.

And it was that something that drew Patrick there almost every other week. Meticulous financial planning had allowed him to purchase tickets to shows at a blessedly frequent rate. Sometimes it was an unbearable, indiscernible nothingness thing that he would later learn had closed after one night. Sometimes it was a weird yet poignant black box production of _Ghost Quartet_ or _Kiss of the Spiderwoman._

And sometimes, you splashed out on _Les_ fucking _Miserables,_ only your date didn’t show up.

The tickets felt misplaced and brittle in Patrick’s hands. He looked up at the theatre, then down at his phone.

2.01pm

**Me**

You said you liked music? And shows?

**My Match**

I mean, I guess so. Who doesn’t lol

**Me**

And you’re still free to meet? I have a feeling we’ll have a good night.

7.22pm

***You shared your location.***

**Me**

Hello?

**You no longer have permission to text or call this user.**

Two girls passed by him hand-in-hand with tote bags from the box office and _Beetlejuice_ T-shirts. The fact that one was saying, ‘Which one should we go for tonight?’ gave Patrick two things: the impression that they were rich, bored tourists, and the confidence to walk up to them.

‘You want these?’ was all he said.

One of the girls’ eyes went comically wide. ‘Oh my _God?_ Are you serious?!’

Her girlfriend squealed in delight. ‘No way! Thank you so much!’

Patrick offered them a tight-lipped smile. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

They gave him a last grateful look and practically barrelled out of his way, already screaming into their phones about the amazing random guy _who_ _just, like,_ _gave us these tickets!_

It came as no surprise to Patrick when he steered himself back down Broadway and round the impassable maze of NYC to his most-frequented bar. Rahim looked up and frowned as he entered, already flipping over a clean glass and shovelling in ice.

‘What happened to Music Man?’ he asked as he added a shot of ginger and lime to the glass.

Patrick shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s sadder, the fact that he didn’t show up or the fact that I didn’t even buy those tickets specifically for him. I was just looking for someone to go with.’

Rahim stopped pouring whiskey and stared at Patrick. Patrick scrunched up his eyes and smiled sheepishly.

‘You can laugh, you know.’

Rahim did. Hard. Then he shook his head fondly. ‘Sorry, man, it’s just…that is pretty low.’

‘Believe me, I know. And that isn’t even the worst thing that happened today.’

‘Ooh, go on.’

‘I saw _him_ today.’

It took Rahim a moment, then his mouth dropped open.

‘I – you mean – beautiful store guy? In New York?’

‘The very same,’ Patrick said, taking a sip of his drink.

‘Beautiful store guy with the crazy sweaters?’

‘Mm-hm.’ Patrick’s gut clenched at that. He hadn’t been wearing one today. Perhaps if he had, it might have made things a little more difficult. Not that it was easy seeing him in _his blue shirt._

He told Rahim the story of how David had, assumedly, moved to New York and was branching out the business they’d formed together. And now, by some bitter punch of fate, he was his consultant again.

‘Sheesh.’ Rahim grabbed another glass and pulled it under the beer nozzle. ‘Have another one on the house.’

Patrick chuckled. ‘Could be worse,’ he said. The way David had snapped with confidence that morning…he shook his head and plucked at his sleeves, suddenly a little warm. _Could be a lot worse._

Rahim looked over at the elevated platform that was tangled with wires and amps at the other side of the bar. ‘Actually, this one’s not _quite_ on the house,’ he said as he put the beer down in front of Patrick. ‘Our hire for the night backed out about five minutes before you got here. Wanna do the honors?’

Patrick conceded, finishing his whiskey and seating himself on the familiar stool under the warm string lights of _The Smoke Kitchen._

_Just do what you usually do. Play whatever feels right._

A low thrum of chords that always felt like they were playing themselves beneath his deft fingers rang softly through the low, shiplap-cladded bar.

‘Heaven help me, he’s dangerous

Like an angel sent here to play with us

And you know damn well he won’t stay with us

Heaven help me, he’s walkin’ away…’

Sometimes he liked to admit when a song was an original, tell the story behind it. Keep people interested. Tonight was not one of those nights. Other times, like right now, Patrick gained a strange sensation of blending in while he played, despite being the centre of most patrons’ attentions. Open mics gave him the same feeling as reading a book on a silent rainy day, or coming in from a long day at work. They were private, redolent; they were trapped in time, like he’d only ever been singing to one person all along.


	4. The Synagogue at Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- This chapter is a vice-versa of the last one in terms of POVs.
> 
> \- Not quite a CW, just a general note that there's heavy religious content/praying towards the end of this chapter. Just letting you know in case that's not your cup of tea.
> 
> \- On that note, I apologise if I made any mistakes in spellings or placing of religious imagery. If I have done, please let me know and I'll correct it!

_‘Patrick, what the hell is this?’_

_‘Hm?’ Patrick stuck his head out of the bathroom, hair flattened with water. He watched David’s eyes soften at the sight of him, flicking down for a moment to the towel around his waist before they returned to the crumpled blue shirt in his own hand._

_‘This. Discarded on the floor like some kind of dirty acid tab at a hangar rave.’_

_‘What? I was gonna pick it up…sometime.’_

_Patrick smirked as David’s voice rose a couple of inhuman octaves. They’d been together for just under four months, but Patrick knew exactly what to say and do to set him off._

_‘Sometime? You’re telling me that I have to spend th–the rest of my– I mean, um, I have to deal with such an ambiguous timeframe as “sometime”?!’_

_David tried to maintain the histrionics, but he was faltering. An aggressive blush crept over his face._

_‘What were you about to say?’_

_David flung his head back. ‘Nothing.’_

_Patrick adopted what David had nicknamed his trolling tone. ‘I don’t know, David, it sounded an awful lot like “the rest of my…”’_

_‘Hm.’ David shrunk in on himself when Patrick approached, but still let himself be enveloped by Patrick’s warm, sure grip._

_‘The rest of our…business contract,’ David continued, his mouth twisted adorably to one side. ‘The rest of this rent-by-the-hour rendezvous thing we’ve got going on.’_

_Patrick leaned in, letting David get out one more silly suggestion before he kissed him._

_‘Maybe just the rest of this morning,’ he whispered, wrapping his arms around Patrick’s neck._

And, like a badly timed ‘80s supernatural romcom, the shirt and its heroic rescuer were there in Patrick’s doorframe, approaching him like he was a rare, caged animal.

This couldn’t be happening. There was no _way_ this was happening. Patrick quickly returned his gaze to his computer, burning with a mortifying scenario in which the screen somehow flipped on its head and showed David exactly what he’d been looking at. How was it he'd been thinking about him, then at the _exact same time,_ here he was?

 _Step, click. Step, click._ As David came closer, Patrick hurriedly closed the social media tabs where he’d been looking at the only surviving posts of him and David – one in the background of an old picture of Stevie’s and a brief YouTube video with 27 views of the open mic where they could be seen in the corner, far too lost in each other to pay attention to the other performances. His palms were sweating. From the corner of his eye, he could see that David looked just as disbelieving as he felt. 

_You can’t give it away. Can’t give any of it away._

Wordlessly, he slid some paper across. He had been expecting absolutely nothing from this J.R. who had entered “47th July 1893” as his birthdate. He remembered how bad Johnny had been at using technology, the memory hitting him like a bubble of laughter and a knife to the gut.

‘If all your other info checks out, we’ll start,’ Patrick said as he watched David scratch off the mistakes and half-smile. That smile had never quite left Patrick’s side. 

_You owe me so many restless nights._

‘Name of the business?’ he said. The sickeningly familiar phrase sat heavy on his tongue.

‘I think you already know what the name of the–’

‘Just answer the question, David.’

Patrick felt his own breath catch in his throat. What was _that?_ He mapped David’s face frantically, watching it dissolve from shock into something more collected and assured. Right. He couldn’t let himself slip if David was going to hold himself together.

‘Name of the business.’

‘Rose Apothecary.’

_Ouch._

‘And…address of the busi–’

‘66 North Constitution Street, The Meadows, NY, 11364.’

_Do you know what you’re doing to me?_

‘And can you give me a brief description of the–’

‘A curation of selected products from local vendors to be sold on consignment in a one-stop-shop retail environment that benefits both the vendor and the customer.’

Patrick felt his stomach drop. This was all too much. A cruel mirror of the past, only this time they didn’t get to start off so comfortably. It was as though fate had fumbled with her cards, accidentally putting them through the motions of another hypothetical meet cute before realising her mistake and shoving them back together two years later, colder and isolated and – cruelly – meant to be. A meet ugly.

_Is that what they were meant to be? Cold? Consider it done._

Patrick swallowed back the burning lump in his throat and tore his gaze away.

‘If that’s all there is to declare with no changes, I think we’re done. If you can send me the details of the new manager at the first store, I’ll be in touch about business branching and financial viability.’

David stood up. It took Patrick everything he had not to look at him.

_It’s easier this way._

‘Was there anything else you wanted to…go over?’

_So much. More than you could ever imagine._

‘No.’

‘And you’ll be in touch–’

‘I _just_ said that.’

He chanced a glance at his ex-boyfriend. That beautiful, recognizable look of offence was crossed over his features. Had he seriously thought Patrick had meant it? Could he not hear the tears in his voice?

‘…When. I was going to say, _when.’_

_Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry._

‘Within the week,’ Patrick said quietly.

Before Patrick had even registered that David was leaving, he was gone. He strained towards the door to listen for the barest hint of noise, but…silence.

He let his head fall onto the desk, saving his glasses from inevitable shattering by the last second. And he cried.

* * *

‘It’s just…that last part, I can’t get my head around it! He straight up told you to leave?’

‘I mean, basically!’ David said, hunched over his laptop with a bag of chips in one hand. Stevie’s shocked face, albeit pixelated and laggy through the screen, was a sight for sore eyes. ‘Well, he said he’d be in touch. But he was really cold about it. Just sent me packing like I was some random upstart with a shitty idea.’

‘So he didn’t exactly tell you to leave, then,’ Stevie said sceptically. ‘And he did say he’d be in touch, so…’

‘That’s because he’s my _consultant,_ Stevie,’ David snapped. ‘My point is, he treated me the same way as everyone else.’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’

David took a chip from the bag, staring at Stevie. He knew what she was doing. She liked to get him to answer his own questions, and he often found that he was more knowledgeable about himself than when he started off. It wasn’t comforting, exactly, but it was cheaper than doing the exact same thing on a therapist’s couch.

‘Because…because he’s acquainted with my business idea already,’ David said.

‘Mm-hm, and?’

‘And he should have at least asked how it was doing.’

Stevie nodded, faking deep concentration.

‘And – ugh, he should have at least asked how _I_ was doing!’ David burst out.

‘Whoop, there it is,’ Stevie said. ‘Because like it or not, you two were disgustingly in l–’

‘Stevie!’

David startled at the sound of the front door and the rattle of keys.

‘You’re incorrect,’ he said, standing up from the sofa to see if Alexis had brought any food.

‘You know I’m right.’

‘Incorrect, Stevie!’

He cut off her satisfied cackle by slapping the laptop lid shut. Alexis rounded the corner into their small living room, a bag dangling off one limp wrist. All David had to do was look at Alexis before her face froze and she said, ‘Which one was it?’

He did a double take as he looked at her. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Which one of your exes did you run into?’ She shuffled over and bopped him gently on the nose. ‘Wait, let me guess.’

She took him by the shoulders and made a little show of looking him over - which David would never admit to finding as therapeutic as he did - before her eyes widened and her mouth snapped shut with shock.

‘…No. Here? In New York?’

David nodded morosely. She flopped down on the sofa, pulling him back with her as he told her the full story. At best, she was unimpressed with him by the end of it.

‘Ugh, and you just walked out? Have I taught you nothing about breakups?’

David thought of Artie and cringed. ‘I think you’ve taught me a little too much about them. And besides, it’s not even “a breakup” anymore. We finished two years ago, and it’s over.’

Alexis stared him up and down and gave a non-committal hum, like she absolutely did not believe him. ‘Okay. I’m making us pesto pasta for dinner, then we’re going out.’

‘Where?’

‘Like, _out_ out.’ Alexis pursed her lips and gave a little shimmy as she stood up. ‘Remember that adorable little club near Lexington where you didn’t even have to trade your bra to get the secret menu? That’s where.’

David rolled his eyes. ‘Just because I had _one_ run-in with a random ex doesn’t mean I need some kind of intoxication therapy.’

‘But the fact that you’ve been single ever since then obviously means that _something_ needs to be done here. Plus, I want to get out. Make some…friends.’

In that moment David was already convinced he would go, just so Alexis would feel better about getting herself out there after Ted. But he still wasn't giving her the satisfaction that easily. He stood up and followed her to the kitchen where she was fussing with the size ratio of the pan and the noodles.

‘Just so you know, I wouldn’t normally be like this about Patrick. Today totally threw me off because he was being so weird about the whole thing.’

‘Um, David? This isn’t like the time I got banned from Klair’s unlicensed Adderall-and-cosmetic-surgery parties ‘cause I accidentally tipped the Australian government off about them. Sometimes it actually _is_ your fault.’

‘How is it _my_ fault?’ he said shrilly.

‘I don’t know, you’re always letting him get to you, even when he’s not here! You– oh.’

Alexis stopped preparing the food, something like an apology clouding her face.

‘You still love him, don’t you?’

‘No! I– that’s not –’

Alexis sighed. ‘Okay. We’ll stop talking about it, but come out anyway. That’ll be my selfish for the month, forcing you out. Mm-hm?’

David yielded. They didn’t bring it up again, but Alexis was right. He needed to get out. The fact that he didn’t even need to mention Patrick’s name to either her or Stevie, yet they knew exactly what had happened and what kind of state he would be in? It was embarrassing.

The club was everything he expected and less. Neon lights in a quite frankly offensive combination of colors strobed to a mindless beat, the air saturated with sugar and sweat and groping hands. Vacant young adults swayed in washes of their own self-importance, buying drinks for photos then pouring them down the sink. David huffed bitterly at the sight of it, knowing that Alexis was biting back the same disgust. Upscale New York, ever the same. Hell on earth with a shiny veneer.

He watched as she forced herself into her flighty, partying, _Little Bit Alexis_ mode and began to drape over unimportant men and bat her eyes for drinks. He wished he could drag them both away from it, but it wasn’t like he had any right to control how other people healed.

He was on his way to the bathroom when he felt a tap on his shoulder. A short, beautiful woman was stood behind him with two drinks in one hand. Her head was tilted back, sunglasses perched atop her brow. She had long blonde hair and ripped jeans. He’d be lying if he said she wasn’t exactly 20-year-old David’s type. He let her pull him into the middle of the dance floor, trying to get lost in the alcohol and her sweet-smelling perfume, but something felt wrong.

He didn’t even realized that she’d kissed him until she pulled away. It was as if nothing had happened.

‘What’s your name?’ she drawled.

‘David Rose,’ he shouted over the deafening pulse of…music? Not quite. It was literally just a deafening pulse.

The girl sighed in a weird, wistful way and shouldered closer. ‘Like Judy Garland’s first husband,’ she said. David supposed she made herself feel unique by saying things like that. And suddenly, he just couldn’t do it anymore.

He scanned above the heads for Alexis, but couldn’t find her. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d already noped out herself. He decided he’d shoot her a text as soon as he crawled out of this place.

After what felt like an age, David was finally out on the street, rubbing sticky hands together and gulping in the night air. He leaned against the brick wall and breathed out.

If his sense of direction hadn’t failed him after five years, then he knew exactly where he was. And he knew exactly where he wanted to go.

 _Round the left corner, thirteen steps. Round the right, thirteen more. Cross over the junction, watch out for the – yep, that pile of scrapped scaffolding, still there. Take another right_. And there it was.

He remembered this place more clearly than any of his old haunts in New York. He hadn’t been far from it last time. When he was sober enough to think or hadn’t stayed out until sunrise, most of his nights out would end here. Walking through the synagogue felt like getting into bed in winter, or getting out of it in summer.

It was open, with some of the candles still lit and dying. David shut the huge door behind him as quietly as he could and leaned against it for a moment, breathing deeply.

There was a table near the door, clothed in white fabric and adorned with pale flowers in preparation for Yom Kippur. He took a crocheted navy kippah and a delicate chiffon scarf from the wicker basket near the table. Then, after a second thought, he took off his leather Fendi jacket. After two steps into the synagogue, he knelt down and took off his shoes. He lined them up with the wall gently. They knocked against it with a soft tap, the sound echoing through the high building like dripping water.

The wooden rafters slanted inwards towards a huge, rounded, stained-glass Star of David. The endless rows of pews made the bimah with its gilded candles feel ten miles away. David walked inside slowly, making deliberate heel-to-toe pace as he took it all in. It used to make him breathless, how the light never seemed to leave this building. It could be the darkest, coldest night of the year and yet the synagogue at midnight always shone like it had drank in the moon, its silver beams filtering through the intricate rooftop and casting glittering shadows on the floor. David could almost feel them, the shadows; feel their homing embrace as he paced beneath them, the cool flagstone floor gently biting his bare feet.

Though he hadn’t realised it at the time, David had used this place in his old life to be completely alone, to tell himself the little things that no one else bothered to say. They rang, low and pure, from his soul.

_You need to stay here, David. One day you may be more than all this. You may be sunlight shining through the cracks. One day, you may make someone feel right. You deserve to have your beauty seen, your intelligence acknowledged, your worth recognized. Being who you are does not diminish you, it uplifts you. Not in spite of yourself, but because of yourself._

When he left, the thoughts would often disappear, rushed away on the wind in a cloud of smog or stamped into the concrete ground of a mindless rave. But he never forgot.

He thought of his five years without a place of worship and wondered how he’d even coped. He wondered if anything had come along and answered those prayers, made him feel like sunlight. Made him feel seen and heard.

He already knew the answer, but he willed himself not to think it. He let it sit on the cold, silent air, cupped gently between the hands of himself and God.

_Tell me, do I still have all of this? Is it still possible? Will you ever give it back to me?_

_Tell me, will you ever give him back?_


	5. Arms Unfolding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I blocked out Patrick's "number" because I didn't want to use a random bunch of numbers and then end up with it being someone's actual number, 'cause that would be weird.

It took five long days before David’s phone pinged with an email alert that made his stomach burn.

**Advice Alliance**

**Re: Rose Apothecary / Branching & Viability**

He wiggled his fingers over the screen, crossing and uncrossing his legs before telling himself to get a grip and clicking forcefully.

Dear Mr. Rose,

The most recent financial data and enterprise stability of ‘Rose Apothecary’ has been analysed by your Advice Alliance consultant. A minor categorical grant (Funding No. P08B D75 R0 SC44) has been secured for expansion. This does curb business spending and steers investment towards specific purposes. This calculation was reached for several reasons:

  * The artisanal nature of ‘Rose Apothecary’ restricts major expansion without threat to business integrity
  * The partnership between ‘Rose Apothecary’ and ‘Rosebud Motels’ means that the supply priority of the former is diverted, therefore–



David stopped reading and scrolled right to the bottom of the (disappointingly generic) email to see the name at the bottom.

**Patrick Brewer**

**Junior Consultant**

**Advice Alliance Co.**

David pursed his lips, feeling…well, not bad. He’d heard from Patrick. And the update was pretty much what he’d been expecting, so thank God Patrick hadn’t decided to completely sabotage his venture. And while he supposed Patrick hadn’t exactly _written_ the email, per se, he’d pasted in the business names. He’d pressed send. Something about that sent a pathetic little shiver up David’s spine.

Before scrolling back up to finish reading the actual information, something caught his eye:

‘The spending regulations of the grant owed to your business means that more frequent guidance from your allocated business consultant is recommended:

Patrick Brewer

437-866-****

p.brewer@advicealliance.org’

_Well, shit._

That wasn’t a number David had forgotten. It might have been absent from his contacts for nearly two years, but he was pretty sure he still tapped it out with his feet while he was in the grocery line. He twitched it in Morse code with the tips of his fingers in the middle of the night. Not intentionally, of course. It just happened.

Johnny had told him that working with a business consultant wasn’t going to be quite the same as last time, especially since _Advice Alliance_ was a larger company. Clearly he’d been wrong.

_They were doing this again, then._

‘Alexis?’

‘Yeah?’ came the yelled response from the kitchen.

‘Question,’ he said as he followed her voice. ‘What would you do if you suddenly _had_ to text one of your exes and keep in constant contact with them for the survival of your entire business project?’

Alexis slammed the fridge and spun round. She laughed in shock. ‘No offence, David, but your life is _extremely_ tragic right now.’

‘Don’t remind me! I think I’m chanting that in my sleep at this point. Answer the question.’

‘Well, if _business project_ means getting framed for smuggling crates of cigars into Singapore and _constant contact_ means getting a restraining order from Stefan Larsson and Adam Levine when we ended up stuck in that elevator together for ten hours then, yeah, I’ve been in that kind of situation a ton of times.’ Alexis reached into a drawer and grabbed a spoon for her yogurt.

‘Advice?’ she continued, pointing the spoon at David. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t care, and don’t act like nothing ever happened. It’s cringey. But at the same time, you need to go into every meeting with him like you’re seeing him for the first time. It gives off a cool, fresh, _you’re my ex and that’s fine_ kind of vibe.’

David tittered. With Patrick, it was kind of hard _not_ to feel like you were seeing him for the very first time. Alexis's advice completely contradicted itself, but also kind of made sense. He wondered how easily he could balance this _cool, fresh vibe_ with _God, you're so beautiful that my eyes hurt and I am personally offended_ and also _I am still irrepressibly angry at you for what you did._

‘When do you see him next?’ Alexis asked.

‘A few days. I think he’ll call me again sooner if he needs to, though.’

David pulled out his phone and looked at the email again. The number stared back.

‘Do you think I should…text him?’ he said. ‘Just to say, I don’t know, hello or something.’

Alexis shrugged. ‘Why not wait ‘til Stevie gets here later and see what she thinks?’

‘Fuck, Stevie’s coming!’ David twisted his head around their apartment frantically, mentally calculating the time it would take to clear Alexis’s mess. ‘Also, _no._ She is not getting a say in the composition of this message.’ He exhaled. ‘Okay. I don’t have time to think about it, just…okay.’

He spared a grain of thought for whether or not he and Patrick were still doing this cold, aloof thing they seemed to have going on last week, but then suddenly it just felt wrong and petty and not _them._

**To: 437-866-******

**David Rose**

Hi, Patrick. Thanks for sending the updates across. I have some initial ideas and worries about location that I’d like to run by you when we have the chance.

Other than that, hope you’re well. How are you finding New York?

David never, ever, _ever_ sent the first draft of a text message, but something higher than him seemed to take his thumbs hostage and hit send before he’d even had a chance to cringe over the last line.

‘How are you finding New York? _Finding_ New York? He’s been here two years already. _Ugh.’_

He gained control over his hands and threw the phone across the carpet for good measure. It sailed right under the sofa, where the buzzing of an incoming call went unnoticed as David scrabbled to find it again.

* * *

Patrick hadn’t been expecting a text so quickly. He read it and re-read it on his push notifications, then opened the Message app. He jogged his knee as he waited for the app to load, aggressively willing down the schoolkid giddiness it invoked.

Then suddenly, there was no need to will it down.

‘1,342 previous messages’ had done it for him.

04/27/18

**David Rose**

I’ll see you Friday for some brainstorming, then?

**Patrick Brewer**

Yup! I’d bring a Thermos if I were you. It’s probably gonna get pretty cold in that empty building all day.

**David Rose**

Um??????

Beverages served in insulated storage vessels is INCORRECT.

**Patrick Brewer**

“Incorrect”. Huh. Not heard that used as a descriptive for a flask before.

**David Rose**

Who in their right mind would ruin a hot drink’s natural structure by forbidding it to cool down?!?!

*

05/01/18

**David Rose**

This might be TMI but I just burped and it tasted like mozzarella sticks

**Patrick Brewer**

HAHAHAHAHA

They really were grim, weren’t they?

**David Rose**

But we eat them and smile because Twyla is a literal angel

Anyway.

I should sleep

Thanks again for a great night 😉 <3

x

**Patrick Brewer**

Happy birthday, David. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.

x

*

09/02/18

**Patrick Brewer**

You can take the day off. I’ll cover the store.

Can we talk later?

**David Rose**

I don’t know. I’m gonna turn my phone off for a few hours.

**Patrick Brewer**

Okay. Take care of yourself

I’m sorry

*

09/03/18

**Patrick Brewer**

I hope you enjoy the spa. Thinking of you. x

*

09/09/18

**David Rose**

Patrick it’s been hours where have you gone

Did I say something back there?

Like, something really bad. I can’t remember.

Can we just sort it out face to face?

*

09/10/18

**You missed a call from David at 11.07am.**

**David Rose**

Patrick please I’m so worried about you

*

09/12/18

**You missed (3) calls from David at 11.23am.**

**David Rose**

Ray told me you’ve skipped town. Tell me otherwise. Please.

(Read 09/13/18)

Patrick was unable to tear his gaze from the screen, having to skip past the sweetest (most agonizing) messages. It was like looking at a silver-ringed, designer-clad bowl you’d smashed then left on the floor for a whole town to clean up. He’d never felt like such a dick in his life. Never winced so deeply at something self-inflicted. Even when he was stood in front of Rachel’s friends time and time again, choking out another pitiful excuse as to why Rachel had been crying on their doorstep at 1am, he’d _always_ tried to justify it. Always let himself be right. He would lean on his mother’s and best friend’s words like a crutch – a damning ring of _not your fault, not your fault, not your fault_ that would drive him further into the ground, wind him tighter until he snapped and ran like always.

His father was different, a difference that was refreshing in this unexpected hindsight. _Les actions ont des sous-produits_ , Clint used to say to him, even before Patrick was fluent enough in French to know what it meant. Everything you do affects someone, somewhere, no matter how small.

‘This is…a slap in the face,’ he muttered to himself. He did that a lot, alone in his office. These thin, beige walls held more of him than any place he’d called home in the past thirty years, and that wasn’t a comforting thought.

He shot a quick text to someone else, then drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘But this is fine. It’s fine. Nothing you can’t handle. Not quite karma. Is it karma…? No.’ _Not quite from the Karmá region of France. Just sparkling consequences._

‘Just pick up the phone, Patrick.’

He did.

It rang.

It rang again.

It rang three more times before the answer machine beeped.

Patrick took a shaky breath, cleared his throat and said, ‘Hi Patrick, it’s David –’

_No. No no no no no no no._

‘No. No, it isn’t, sorry, I just– that was not deliberate. I wasn’t trying to– it just came out. Okay. I’m gonna need you to come in and look over some…stuff, sooner than later. About t-the business thing. Yup. Um, words. I don’t know what I was saying there.’ Patrick broke himself off with a nervous laugh. He wanted to die.

Before his brain and his fingers had time to connect, he clicked the red button and hung up the call. By the time his stupid head finally caught up, he realised that he’d sent the word ‘Text’ to David’s number.

Patrick groaned, pushing his keyboard forward so he had more space to sprawl onto his desk.

There was a short knock on his door. He thought he knew who it was, so he just let himself groan again in response. The handle clicked quietly and in wafted the smell of coffee.

‘Hi, Amanda,’ Patrick said, not looking up from his desk.

Amanda, the only decent friend he had at this very bland, very silent company, entered with a tray of hot drinks that had a paper packet balanced on top. ‘I just got your text and figured you might want some company.’ 

Amanda worked in the office opposite him. What had started as a pity-fest over mutual breakups became a fast friendship. Well, some friendship, mostly ruthless teasing and kicks up the ass to stop each other doing something stupid while they did their time in this vast lump of a city.

He hadn’t been up for making any friends at all, not even with Rahim. He didn’t have the time nor the patience to be the Miserable Nice Guy, listening to people slap soothing nothings over his terrible mistakes. But he had soon realised that there were people in this place just as tired, just as cynically optimistic; people who’d done much worse things than him. He had conceded to their company, ultimately content with the thought that no matter where he ran to next, he had some real, permanent friends that hadn’t been moulded by his hometown.

‘I just sent him a voicemail,’ Patrick said, taking a drink and a cookie from Amanda. ‘And I completely messed it up. Now he probably thinks I was going for some weird, meta re-introduction where I try and recreate something that’s already happened.’

Amanda eyed him sceptically. ‘Is he really the kind of person who thinks like that?’

Patrick glared at her. ‘This is the man who once overthought himself into a loop until 5am because he heard some studio laughter on the TV downstairs and thought it was someone outside laughing at him.’

‘Point taken.’ Amanda sat down opposite him. ‘Are you…going to text him back? You can't just leave it at _Text.’_

‘I guess I have to, but…what do I say at the end? How do I respond to the personal bit?’

Amanda looked over the text and shrugged. ‘Why don’t you recommend somewhere to him? Invite him out somewhere.’

‘Nah, too soon. I suppose I could just…’

**Patrick Brewer**

Hey, thanks for checking in. Please ignore the voicemail and text. I can book you a 1-hour slot for Tuesday 10:00 –

_‘Patrick, if we’re gonna be in a relationship, I should probably reiterate that I am absolutely not a morning person.’_

Patrick backspaced.

**Patrick Brewer**

I can book you a 1-hour slot for Tuesday 14:00 if that’s okay with you.

And I’m good, yeah. New York is…well, it’s New York. You probably know what I mean. There’s a lot of good Canadian scene here. You ever tried _The Smoke Kitchen?_

Amanda cackled as she proofread the message.

‘You did _not_ just recommend your local. You did? You did. Oh my God. You’re chaotic and I hate you.’

‘Don’t make this any worse! It was the first thing that came to mind!’

‘If you let your dumb head flop onto that dumb desk once more, I’m installing spikes on it,’ Amanda warned.

_Too late._

* * *

The twisting alleys and distant sounds of smashing glass that seemed to snatch the light and life out of New York City had Stevie and David doubting that they were in the vicinity of the place Patrick had suggested. They had only really known him for six months, but that was more than enough time to expect security and warmth and that country boy tweeness that they secretly loved from anything he associated himself with.

However, one step inside _The Smoke Kitchen_ completely threw the outside on its head.

‘Jeez, it’s like someone gentrified _The Wobbly Elm_ ,’ Stevie said. She was right; it looked almost exactly the same, only its creaky floorboards and sputtering lights were touted as sentimental instead of desperate.

The bartender looked up – and didn’t stop looking – as they stepped in. He edged closer to the kitchen door and knocked on it. When the chef emerged, he handed her what looked like a folded stack of dollars. After that he spun on his heel and started wiping down the bar, smirking.

‘What was _that_ all about?’ David said, his tone trimmed with self-conscious offense.

Stevie, far too ingenious for her own good, had pieced it together as it was unfolding. She grinned a grin that was almost as wide and shit-eating as the bartender’s.

‘Looks like someone knew you were coming tonight,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of cute that the dude recognised you straight away. Almost as if someone in here constantly talks about you.’

‘You know, I’m just gonna tune you out now, Stevie. You and whatever scheme you think is happening. I’m getting our drinks and we’re sitting away from that weird bar guy.’

While David looked for a seat, Stevie hung back and leaned across to the _weird bar guy._

‘Okay, you don't know me, but...should we let Patrick know he’s here?’ Stevie said.

Rahim chuckled. ‘Nah, give it time. It's like watching a bad romcom backwards.’

Stevie eventually seated them in a small booth furthest away from the raised platform where most people had begun to congregate, their view half obscured by a glass divider. The string lights glinted and blurred behind the frosted windowpane, then disappeared completely as someone stepped up onto the stage with the pluck of a guitar string and a soft whine of microphone feedback.

Stevie tipped her head back and her mouth formed into a triumphant, comical ‘O’.

‘I knew it. I _knew it_.’

David died approximately seven times before sneaking a glance at the stage. Yep, there he was. Propped on a barstool with a cider at his feet. Tuning up his guitar.

Devastatingly, excruciatingly beautiful.

Why David chose that exact moment to start boring Stevie with the financial details of the business and pressing her for news about the motel, he didn’t know. Why Stevie chose to ignore him very pointedly, he knew all too well.

It was through some natural defence mechanism, David supposed, that he was tuning out the sound of the singing that he’d missed so much. The way he would grip his lip with his teeth as he played, the gentle banter with the audience, the singing that felt like warm arms in the storeroom. The singing that felt like coming home. The singing. _The singing._

_God, that voice. You’ll be the death of me one day, and you won’t even know it._

‘Stevie. I wanna go somewhere else.’

David gave her a look, and she knew he meant it. Sometimes, she had to let the antics go; let David breathe, and grieve.

‘I have, uh, one last song for you tonight. This one goes out to…anyone who wants it.’

Some of the string lights reappeared behind the silhouette they’d been obscured by for the past half hour. Through the glass, David might have been able make out the face that had looked up towards the back of the bar, but by then he and Stevie had already ducked out into the harsh, autumnal bite of the city air.

‘Hope I'm not tired of rebuilding

Cause this might take a little more

I think I'd like to try look at you

And feel the way I did before

Oh, our fire died two falls back

All of the shouting blew it out

I could live without or with you

But I might like having you about

These new walls are pretty hard to crack

And it might take a while until you trust I won't attack

Oh, I apologize, but it was only self-defense

Running away just made sense

But here I am with arms unfolding

I guess it isn’t quite the end

Old partner in crime, I am going to try

To fall in love with you again’


	6. The Emcee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Six chapters in, we finally have a break from the angst?? I am sorry for any emotional pain caused thus far. I hope this doesn't feel too rushed or random, I'm kind of worried that it does. But this is just a fic I'm writing for fun and enjoyment, so I'm not losing sleep over minor details.

The sky above New York was, in its ever-blatant indication of the world’s comings and goings, soft and fresh and bleak. More fog than smog today, it insisted so heavily upon dipping the city into full mid-fall mode that you couldn’t help but believe it.

Patrick always thought the sky looked like it hadn’t loaded when it was iron-gray like this. Back home, the sun seemed to hold permanent fort over the town, even in the snow. Especially in the snow, even; one step out of the shade of dark pine trees and you’d be blinking green spots for the rest of the day.

New York was, for all its sleepless nights, a little easier on his eyes. It was unapologetic. Honest about the shitty days.

Patrick took a deep breath that came out in a puff of cold air.

_Right. You can do this._

_Just clear your head, and walk in._

The door handle of the empty lot rattled harshly as Patrick pushed it open. Immediately, he could see why David was having reservations about the location, and he didn’t even need a Rose-esque lens to see it.

It was…big. The space was darker and sleeker than the Rose Apothecary in Schitt’s Creek, the harsh angles and gaping indents in the walls telling Patrick that this had either been an avant-garde art store or an upscale boutique where the average – and even above average – Joes would barf at the price of a sock. He looked around some more, dropping his bag to the ground.

In their meeting the other day, which was surprisingly placid and productive, they had agreed to meet on the lot to look it over at midday, but Patrick was here early. Within about ten minutes on Tuesday, Patrick had already felt perilously close to being as involved as last time. After several somewhat friendly phone conversations and the meeting, they’d started talking as a team again. Patrick’s chest would flutter every time David said ‘we’ or ‘our’ in relation to the business, whether David was aware he was doing it or not. They’d even laughed about some of the hardships they remembered of opening a store, and when Patrick’s brain wasn’t short circuiting he felt something unlock inside. That night, he and Amanda had shared a Chinese takeout and he’d admitted to how terribly he’d been dealing with everything up to now. Then he spent a couple of nights trying to reset his brain, trying to work on it all from the ground up again. No more moping on stage and hoping someone would move things into gear for him. He decided not to mention _The Smoke Kitchen_ or ask whether David had visited. It was a stupid move on his part to recommend it so soon. No more mind games with himself or with David, who deserved Patrick’s remorseful fresh start. It had taken a minute, but David being here was starting to make him feel like his old self again.

_It’s just a store. And you’re just Patrick. You can do this._

Patrick took some spare paper and a pencil from the side of the room. He supposed David could work with it if he warmed the tone of the lights, added some plants. Stocking the wholesale that David had procured from New York would have to take a bit of aesthetically-minded math to efficiently fill in the horrible, windowsill-like gapes in the walls. And–

‘Patrick?’

‘Ah!’

Patrick’s heart leapt into his throat. He snapped his head up to the door a little too fast. Rubbing the crick in his neck, he adjusted his gaze to a very confused, very sleepy David Rose in the doorway.

Perhaps it was the morning fog and, Patrick noticed with surprise ( _how long have I been in here?_ ), creeping sunshine that made David’s silhouette soft and shining at the edges. But as David stepped inside and closed the door behind him, Patrick realised with a pang of memory that that was just _him._ The slightly curled mess of his tall hair caught the sun in twenty different directions, and skin and nails glowed almost translucently in their radiance.

David rubbed his hand over his eyes and Patrick melted, just a little bit.

‘Sorry, I didn’t– I didn’t think you were going to be in until later,’ Patrick said.

‘What are you doing here? You said you had to be in later because you were sorting out the fil– the fillit contract thing.’

Patrick smiled. ‘Affiliate marketing contracts, and I know. I was, uh…thinking about the space and curiosity just got the better of me, I guess.’

‘Me too. I got a call really early from the couple who are looking after the store at home and they told me they’d had a very, very small discussion about _moving_ , so I’m naturally feeling a bit apprehensive right now.’

Patrick grimaced. Four months was long enough to know that _a bit apprehensive_ for David Rose meant _absolutely wrecked._

‘So what’s all this?’ David said, gesturing to the veritable ocean of A3 papers that had slowly gathered around Patrick in the two hours he’d been here.

Patrick looked down, feeling like he was looking at the mess for the first time. ‘Oh. Well. Um. I was thinking about ideas. I guess I got carried away.’ He looked at his bag, suddenly remembering the only reason he’d actually come here early. ‘Damn it, I was gonna – yeah.’

_‘Patrick, what the hell is this weather?’_

_Patrick backed out of the storeroom and into the main body of space in which a very cold, very offended David Rose was pacing frantically and flapping his hands. He indulged himself in a moment’s watching before he spoke up._

_‘Sorry, David, it’s all Environment Canada had clean this morning,’ Patrick said. ‘I did tell you to bring a Thermos.’_

_‘I swear, if it’s like this all the time, I am literally giving up this whole idea.’_

_Patrick put on an exaggerated pout. ‘What, and me with it? You wound me, David.’_

_For a split second, David looked genuinely panicked. ‘That’s not – no, no, I didn’t mean…’ he stopped short at the sight of Patrick’s grin. ‘You bastard.’_

_‘I promise, next time we’re cold and alone in a store, I’ll bring you a peace offering. A humble space heater, perhaps.’_

_David gave him a smile that made Patrick’s chest cave in. ‘Fine.’ He scribbled a long note onto a piece of paper. ‘I’ll settle for a coffee at the moment. Don’t skimp on the cocoa powder.’_

_Of course, the next time they were cold and alone in a store, they had much more on offer to keep themselves warm._

‘A space heater?’

Patrick shuffled backwards to plug in the heater, burning with embarrassment. He hadn’t been expecting David to come in early as well. What he _had_ expected, in fact, was to get out before David arrived, leaving the space a little warmer for David’s inspection, then return later than David did, or…something.

 _Who does things like that? People who are crazy over other people, that’s who._ At least that’s what Rahim had said when Patrick had told him the plan.

Patrick nodded. ‘They said it was gonna be the coldest day of the fall, so…always best to be prepared, I guess.’

David looked at him with an unreadable expression, his black eyes glittering. Then he knelt down on the other sides of the papers, not once taking his eyes off Patrick as though he was waiting for an explanation.

‘Listen, David, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be getting this involved in creative stuff, but you said I should look at the place too and I…yeah. I got interested about how you were gonna use the space. From a – a trading perspective.’

David narrowed his eyes, but not unkindly. From an A3 paper’s worth of distance, Patrick could see the glisten of not yet sunken-in skin product and the solitary light hairs in his thick eyebrows.

‘Can I have a look at them?’ David said.

Patrick shrugged. ‘I suppose. I probably shouldn’t be doing any of this without your permission anyway.’

David laughed. Just before his mind blanked at the sound of it, Patrick quickly filtered through the bank of David laughs he remembered. It could have been the polite laugh of an acquaintance. It could just have easily as been the fond, vulnerable, childlike laugh that sounded like gold and was quite possibly reserved for Patrick.

‘You don’t have to _ask my permission_ to help out.’ David bent down to concentrate on the sketches, some bird’s-eye and some more detailed. Then David’s face dropped, and Patrick’s stomach with it.

He didn’t dare say anything until David looked up. Was he angry? No. His eyes were full of…something. Something Patrick hadn’t stuck around for long enough to decipher.

‘Patrick, these look a lot like the Rose Apothecary in Schitt’s Creek.’

Patrick met his gaze sheepishly. ‘I hope that doesn’t disrupt the natural flow of your aesthetic vision.’

To his relief, David laughed again. _He’s doing that a lot. Is it nerves? Is he deflecting?_

‘What?’ Patrick said.

‘What?’

‘Laughing at me.’

‘Oh, nothing. I just forgot.’

‘Forgot what?’

‘That you’re funny.’

* * *

David hadn’t forgot. He had, however, been looking for a way to tell him. ‘Forgot that you’re funny’ was really _I remember every little thing about you. I remember your four different tea orders and what they told me about the mood you were in. I remember the way you’d suck your teeth while you were counting money. I remember the way your eyes would melt when I suggested future holidays and how you cried when I told you that you made me feel safe. You didn’t know I was watching you, but I saw your tears. Saw your smile._

They had sat there for an hour more, eventually squeezing in some chat about logistics. And if David had tried to surreptitiously ask if Patrick was doing anything that night, then that was neither here nor there.

3.24pm

**David Rose**

I just had the weirdest and quite possibly the best morning I’ve had since I landed in this hell swamp city

**Stevie Budd**

You have said this every single day since that meeting

I swear to God if you start fucking talking about Patrick again I-

Ugh okay what

**David Rose**

LISTENNNN listen

We sat down in the store today and brainstormed some stuff

No idea why I invited him but it just felt right in the meeting yknow

And now I feel like I wanna,,,bridge the gap.

Do something

**Stevie Budd**

Are you sure about that, David?? It seems awfully fast

You have a lot of stuff to work through

If I were you I would still wanna light him on fire

**David Rose**

I mean as friends!

Things have felt normal again and I am interested in proceeding as FRIENDS

**Stevie Budd**

sure_jan.gif

**David Rose**

Will get back to you, he’s calling me. Warmest regards

David lifted the phone to his ear.

‘Patrick, it’s been ten minutes. Has something happened?’ David asked urgently. He was three blocks’ away from the store now, and Patrick had hung behind to clear up the papers.

‘No, no. I just remembered I do have plans tonight. I get in as much Broadway as I can when I’m here, and I was actually planning on going tonight. I know you’ve been a bit stressed with this whole location and that couple moving thing, so you wouldn’t…want to come with me, would you?’

David masked his sheer incredulity and the sounds in his head that resembled TV static and screaming with a sarcastic comment.

‘First of all, _bonjour_ , Mr. Money Man. I wasn’t sure there was such a thing as being able to “get in” random Broadway trips every month. Also, if you’d already bought one ticket, then wouldn’t it be kind of impossible to get a seat next to yours?’

But he was smiling, smiling so wide that the cold hurt his teeth.

‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll sort something out. You okay to meet on 47th at 6.30?’ Patrick said.

‘Um…yeah. Yeah, I am.’

* * *

They didn’t get dinner together, since it felt a little too tied. They'd silently ruled it out and were quite comfortable not to bring it up. Patrick held onto the tickets tightly, hoping David wouldn’t want to take it home as a memento or anything and risk seeing the purchase date. Practically the second David had left, he’d scrambled for his phone and was lucky enough to find two last-minute tickets.

**Patrick Brewer**

Be honest. Is it too much?

**Rahim Aziz**

…Do you want the nice answer?

**Patrick Brewer**

Yes.

**Rahim Aziz**

It is a respectful, friendly, business partner’s trip.

Want the real answer?

**Patrick Brewer**

…Yes.

**Rahim Aziz**

S I M P

Patrick put his phone in his back pocket as he and David made their way to their seats.

‘So I take it you’re a fan, then?’ Patrick said amusedly. David had been absolutely buzzing about the show ever since Patrick had mentioned the name, eyes glued to his phone every five seconds so he could frantically text Stevie.

‘We literally put it on in Schitt’s Creek! Stevie was Sally! My mom – well, she _sort_ of directed. And I’m not really sure you could call Alexis’s moves dancing _,_ but still.’

* * *

David remembered the Cabaret performances as one of his favorite weeks in Schitt’s Creek. After some very dark, uncertain years, he’d finally felt like something in the town understood him. Stevie’s performance had made him feel a kind of proud love that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before. Even seeing Alexis preen and flounce through the dance moves had made him smile uncontrollably.

The Emcee had been…okay.

‘Fun fact, I’ve always wanted to be the Emcee.’

David looked at Patrick.

‘You know, I can kinda see that.’

Just as the lights dimmed and the loudspeaker instructed everyone to turn off their phones, the air between them slumped half an inch with a slight, aching regret.

_What could you have been? What could we have been?_

David looked into Patrick’s warm, honey colored eyes until he could no longer see them through the harsh, flashing hedonism of 1920s Germany. They mouthed along the whole time, both leaning a little too hard on the shared armrest in a united attempt to salvage something. They moved closer like they were testing the waters of what could have been, like David was trying to convey how much Patrick would have enjoyed Cabaret back home and Patrick was trying to convey how he already knew.

* * *

The curtain had closed long before David and Patrick left their seats. Only when the audience around them had completely cleared and the ushers were making their way down the aisles with trash bags did they finally tear their eyes away from the thick red velvet. Patrick looked at David and raised his eyebrows in a ‘well, then’ sort of way. David took the cue and they both stood up, silent until they were outside.

‘Verdict?’ Patrick said as they made their way to the edge of the pavement, bundling his arms under the sides of his coat.

‘I’d say Cliff was the best. What’s-her-name is no Stevie,’ David shrugged.

Patrick chuckled. ‘I’m sure she’d be thrilled to hear she’s got something on professional Broadway stars. You should tell her that.’

David stuck his hand out, finally managing to hail a cab.

‘And you can tell her I said hi,’ Patrick said, in a sudden burst of bravery.

‘I will.’ David got into the cab, rolling down the window as soon as he closed the door.

‘Oh, and the staging was only marginally better than ours. And I’ve known better Emcees. I think.’


	7. Merry Christmas, David Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- This one is slightly longer than the others. My chapter lengths have been grossly inconsistent thus far.  
> \- TW for small amounts of irresponsible drinking at the /very/ end of the chapter.  
> \- I had a small sentence in this chapter referring to how New York looked like a scene from Home Alone 2 in the winter, but then I remembered that Home Alone 2 doesn’t exist in the Schitt’s Creek universe because Catherine O’Hara is in it. Lol.  
> \- I would like to extend a personal sorry-not-sorry to @blackandwhiteandrose. You know I couldn’t keep you from your beloved angst for long ;)

As David wandered through the tunnel of skilfully placed gift advertisements and sugar-dustings of snow that Times Square had become, he felt like a freight train had passed in front of him and suddenly it was winter. As always, Halloween was swiftly choked away by a string of far-too-early Christmas lights, and Thanksgiving had done little to kneecap the oncoming barrage of carols and capitalism. He did appreciate his opportunity to wear his favorite Allsaints camel coat, though. And the surprisingly good busker who was currently working her way through Mariah’s iconic Christmas single.

Just as David was making his way over to drop two dollars in her bucket, his phone rang.

‘Hello?’ he said, offering a smile to the busker, who’d stopped singing to say ‘thank you, handsome, and happy holidays!’

‘David!’ came the unison cry of Paul and Rosa, the couple who were running the store back in Schitt’s Creek. As usual, they sounded far too invested in life for this time of the day.

‘Hey, guys, is everything okay?’

‘Oh, it’s _more_ than okay. We just called to tell you the news.’

David quickly stepped against the wall of the store he’d been passing. He hoped his moment of silence expressed the correct amount of _okay what the fuck_ and _if you tell me you backed your family-sized SUV into the store I am going to materialize in Schitt’s Creek and destroy everything you love._

‘Uh…news?’ David said. It was somewhat strangled.

‘We’re getting married!’

David’s brief rush of relief was plugged by the realization that Paul and Rosa would have definitely talked some more about moving. In no universe would David ever be prepared to delegate the running of his precious store to some new person that he hadn’t spent at least three months in person and four hours’ worth of interviews with.

‘Um. Sorry, did you say married?’

‘Mm-hm!’

David could hear their toothy smiles down the phone. They each seemed to have double the incisors of the average human.

‘It was _so_ romantic,’ Paul said. ‘I took her up for a hike and a picnic –’

‘– I didn’t really wanna go, since it was so cold and I was tired and –’

‘– Just went straight through my foot –’

‘– The next thing I knew, there he was on one knee –’

‘– And she said yes –’

‘– And I said yes!’

As he rounded the corner to the street where the new store lay, David couldn’t help a brief smile. It did sound kind of cute. He considered mentioning their move, but snapped out of it. He didn’t want to step on the moment.

‘So, about our move,’ Rosa said.

_Oh. Never mind._

‘We’ve actually been thinking about coming back to the States, so we can be near Paul’s mother,’ she continued. ‘We’ll keep you updated, of course, but with the way things are looking at the moment we might be making tracks sooner than we think.’

_Fuck._

‘Um…okay,’ David replied, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘Sorry, I’ll – am I okay to email you back tonight and we can sort this out? I’m just about to sort out the store, and I…yeah. Okay. Sorry.’

David hung up before he could say anything neurotic that he might regret. As overpowering as Paul and Rosa could be, they were sweet. They didn’t deserve the ugly end of a David Rose stress session.

As David was getting himself settled (albeit restlessly) in the store, preparing to tackle the less fun sides of decoration and the mountain of paperwork on the front desk, the broken bell above the door rang in its half-assed, janky way. The only person who had ever, in David’s opinion, really been equipped to handle a David Rose stress session was coming through the door, two Starbucks balanced in one hand and a crate of décor in the other.

David grumbled loudly, because he knew Patrick wouldn’t mind. ‘Mm-mm. No. Whatever is resting under your arm will need several rounds of thorough inspection before it’s allowed to be in the store.’

Patrick feigned confusion. ‘What, you wouldn’t care to have _this_ fine specimen,’ he said, pulling a gaudy papier mache turkey from the top of the crate, ‘sitting front and center for all the customers to see?’

‘Ugh!’ David crossed the length of the store, tripping over a couple of boxes on the way, and plucked it out of Patrick’s hand. ‘The fact that I’m living in the same world as someone who came up with this is deeply unsettling. And I’m not sure this look is really gonna sell anymore,’ he said as he raked through the rest of the Thanksgiving decorations under Patrick’s arm. ‘As much as I believe the fall aesthetic is the most well-rounded of the four seasons, when New York tells you it’s Christmas, it’s fuckin’ Christmas.’

‘December doesn't even start for another week and a half!'

David shook his head and wagged his finger. ‘Nuh-uh. Santy Claus doesn’t come to the cheapskates in this side of town.’

Patrick laughed. David warmed inside at the fondness in his eyes.

‘Brought you a coffee,’ Patrick said, tapping his finger on the one meant for David.

David raised his brow in thanks as he took a sip. His exact order.

‘What are you doing here, anyway? I thought this was meant to be your day off work.’

‘It is. I just thought I’d come by and see if you needed any help.’

Patrick dropped the crate onto the front desk, shook off his coat and flipped the plug on the wall to set off the space heater that had become a permanent feature of the store. David drank his (literally perfect) coffee as he watched him silently, marvelling at how easily Patrick seemed to have slotted back alongside the routines of David’s life.

‘Looks like we have a few stands and shelves to assemble today,’ Patrick said. ‘But first, what’s got you so riled up?’

David raised his chin and pressed his lips together. ‘Who says I’m _riled up?’_

‘You groaned in frustration as I walked through the door like you needed some kind of outlet. Plus, you’re doing that thing with your fingers where you rub them together against your coat. And…’ Patrick cleared his throat, the tips of his ears turning red. It made David a little giddy. ‘And, um. Yeah. So I’d say you’re riled.’

David fought hard against a smile. ‘Well, if you must know, Paul and Rosa called this morning to tell me they’re getting engaged, and that now they’re definitely thinking about moving.’

‘I mean, apart from sorting out a new manager for the Schitt’s Creek store, that’s not exactly bad news, is it?’

‘It’s extra stress I don’t need! I have so many deals to sign and agreements for this godawful location to look over, and ugh. Canada was so much easier.’

‘You might be right about that.’

Silence.

‘But they do sound pretty sweet, though,’ Patrick said carefully. ‘Must be nice running the store together, having a joint goal.’

David looked at him. ‘Yes and no. Working with them was nauseating when they were all loved up. When I left, I was half convinced they were gonna rename the place Rosa Paulthecary for the thrill of it.’

Patrick snorted into his tea, struggling to catch his breath afterwards as he choked out a genuine laugh. It set David off laughing, too. He’d forgotten what it was like being around someone who thought he was funny, and not just because he commented on the thread count of towels and expected a goodbye from one-night stands.

When they’d subdued, Patrick eyed him strangely and said, ‘Do you think we were ever that bad?’

David’s hands stilled over the box of all-natural fragrances he’d been opening. They’d talked a little about their relationship here and there over the past couple of weeks. David owed it to their unspoken pact of maturity, but it still felt like a little stab between his ribs.

‘No. No, we were…normal. Nice.’

Unbeknown to him, David curved his head away from Patrick’s grin at the last second. He was struggling to swallow down the biting clauses at the ends of his sentences that were forming in his head. _Normal, until we weren’t. Nice, until you left._

‘I’m bored of this,’ David said loudly, cutting his thoughts off mid-sentence. ‘Is there literally any way we can get around our lack of appropriate Christmas decorations and finish up the actual layout of the store before it gets all dark and depressing outside?’

‘Here’s an idea. We set a timer to do all the boring stuff by lunch, then why don’t we just…put up the Thanksgiving stuff anyway? For no reason?’

David scoffed. ‘What’s this? Patrick Brewer, suggesting unproductive activity?’

‘Everything’s productive if it contributes to something,’ Patrick countered.

‘And what’s this contributing to?’

Neither were really sure.

* * *

David came home from the store feeling like the setup had sketched something out inside him and the decoration had colored it in. His and Patrick’s laughter over strings of paper pumpkins and the tangy, artificial scent of spiced plum room spray warmed him all the way home, where Alexis was waiting for him with a toasted club sandwich and a crème brulee.

They ate, as they often did, cross-legged on the floor.

‘We do have a breakfast bar, why don’t we ever use it?’ David said.

Alexis shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I kind of like this rugged, cosy-chic look for us.’

‘Speaking of us, wanna do something tonight? I feel like we haven’t hung out in ages. Another season of that show that Mom’s friend is in just dropped on Interflix.’

Alexis tightened her jaw. ‘Um, _yes,_ is what I totally would say if I didn’t have a work thing tonight. I just locked in this PR deal for Beyonce’s assistant and we’re having this, like, _Great Gatsby_ and blue cheese selection party.’

David just hummed in acknowledgment. While he was glad Alexis was doing what she loved and was surrounded by genuinely decent people for once, his social life had dried up since he left Schitt’s Creek. Granted, he’d left the town with a hell of a lot more self-respect and knew how to filter through the vacuous mulch of New York’s elitist society, but it didn’t stop him feeling like he was going about this the wrong way.

There was a buzz in the pocket of his sweatpants. David rolled his eyes internally when he realised that his heart’s Pavlovian reaction to that buzz had returned; back in the early days of the first store’s opening, every contact except for one would fill him with disappointment.

**Patrick Brewer**

img.321

to explain this absolute UNIT of a meal, the Postmates app glitched and I accidentally ordered 2x the amount. Would be a shame to waste it alone.

David froze. Attached was a photo of two bottles of wine, two extra-large pepperoni pizzas, and one chocolate cake. That meant Patrick had specifically requested for half a chocolate cake, and something about that was the most adorable thing David had ever heard.

He snapped a quick picture of his almost-gone sandwich and creme brulee.

**David Rose**

img.322

If I can work my way through this gigantic feast first, I might consider it 😉

**Patrick Brewer**

Coulda told me you were already dining like a king tonight. lol

**David Rose**

Keep the pizza warm, I’ll be about an hour.

David startled when he realised Alexis had been looking over his shoulder, T-Rex hands clasped at the fingertips.

‘Ooh, has someone got a second-first date tonight with the little buttony businessman?’ she crooned.

‘Not a date. Not everything has to be a date.’

‘Well, by the looks of that _accidental_ order, he’s at least a little bit interested.’ Alexis looked at him warily. ‘ _Sorry,_ David,’ she said in that deliberate, pre-emptive way, like she thought David was expecting an apology.

Out of every negative emotion people tended to wrangle out of him, that was the one thing that irritated him the most. The fact that everyone constantly assumed he was offended, like he was some delicate artefact that needed dusting. Look, but don’t touch it. Don’t bring it anywhere. Don’t let it in on the fun.

Patrick was the only person who’d never done that to him. From the moment they’d met, David got the incurable sense that Patrick was laughing _with_ him, rather than at him, appealing to the self-awareness that David saw in himself so rarely he was only half-sure it was really there. In four short months, Patrick had taught David how to laugh at himself, but still maintain all of the things that made him David.

**David Rose**

Nvm, I’ll be there as soon as I can.

* * *

‘If you could just sit down, David, that would –’

‘I refuse to eat anywhere near this–’ David grunted as he loaded the pumpkin into his arms – ‘outdated monstrosity!’

Patrick was torn between helping and laughing as he watched David struggle to haul his Thanksgiving pumpkin out of the living room.

‘Like I said this morning, Thanksgiving is barely over.’

David shot Patrick an insulted look that made his stomach flip. He’d seen David force politeness. He’d seen his cold indifference. To offend David Rose’s aesthetic sensibilities was like an honor in comparison, like David was actually bothering to spare mental energy to be genuinely annoyed.

By the time Patrick had given his head a shake, David had returned from the trash in the kitchen.

‘Did I seriously just stand there and let you throw out my decoration?’ Patrick chuckled.

David brushed his hands off and stared at him defiantly. ‘It was sagging. _Sagging_ , Patrick. You should be grateful you’re not gonna end up with mold spores on your walls.’

‘I don’t care, I was gonna throw it out tomorrow anyway.’

They sat comfortably on opposite sides of the sofa, eating warm pizza and making a start on the first bottle of wine. Easy conversation tumbled gently between snatches of _Law & Order _reruns. In his steadily-growing tipsiness Patrick had decided to bring up the blue shirt incident from two months ago, relieved when David met it with a large, amused gasp.

‘That was _unintentional!_ Alexis told me to wear something businessy and we’d just moved here, so I have excuses.’

‘Excuses, hm?’

‘Yes. You’re the most businessy person I know.’

Patrick snorted. ‘You make it sound so boring.’

David waved him away with a loose hand, the wine in his glass tipping dangerously close to the edge. ‘Nope. No, not boring. You’re helpful.’

Patrick felt a descending warmth in his throat that had nothing to do with the wine. He weighed his chances and edged a little closer to David. ‘You think?’

‘Are you seriously fishing for compliments right now?’

‘More than ever, my friend.’

David’s dark, shining eyes fixed hard on Patrick. What Patrick assumed was the last sober shred of David said, ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’

Patrick nodded, drained his glass and refilled it. ‘Yup. We are.’

‘And that’s good.’

‘Mm.’

David’s head lolled back onto the beige leather of the sofa. ‘You _are_ helpful. You’re bailing me out on the things I don’t understand. Like last time. Like you’re always meant to, or something.’

His lowered inhibitions and the still-frequent sips of drink had moved Patrick even closer. Whoever moved in first was impossible to tell, but Patrick’s face was now an inch from David’s. Up close, he could see the gentle maintenance of his dark stubble, the slightly parted, wine-dark mouth. Patrick mumbled against it.

‘Why did I do it, David? Don’t know. Was scared. I always just…run away. S’easier.’

He brushed his fingertips against David’s and then their lips were crashing together messily, firm yet gentle and craving.

Until they weren’t.

And David was pushing him away.

* * *

Everything went cold.

He’d had a taste. That was all it took. Before his bitch of a memory taunted him with car rides and promising goodbyes outside the Italian at Elmdale and then suddenly David couldn’t take it anymore.

‘No. Not now. This is too soon.’

Panic flashed across Patrick’s eyes.

‘Did I do something?’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to push you, it’s just…’

‘No, it’s not that, I just – no! No, Patrick, you didn’t do anything! And that’s the problem!’

The panic dissolved. Resignation and guilt replaced it. Patrick sunk back into the sofa.

Stevie and Alexis had told him to be like this. He hadn’t listened. But the more he spoke, the more that bled out of his mouth, David realized that _this_ was what he deserved before any of the friendship that he’d been trying to build. He deserved to be angry.

‘I can’t do it right now. I can’t be…used like this, especially not by you. I won’t let you do that to me, or yourself.’

‘David, I’m not using you. You have no idea what I –’

‘Of _course_ I have no idea what you want! You never fucking gave me a chance to find out!’

David had seen the way Patrick was with people now. How he’d come into meetings citing a ‘lack of sleep’ for his disorientation, and David had pieced together that someone had spent the night at his. The way he would make the most – or rather, the least – of single life with a string of forgettable men. If Patrick thought he could rattle him around like a toy for the sake of soothing his self-inflicted wounds, he had another think coming.

‘David, you don’t understand. I don’t know what you think I’m trying to do, but I…’ Patrick’s hands flailed at the air in front of him as he struggled to articulate. ‘There was something you said to me when we broke up that I’ve never forgotten. “I’ve never been in this situation before.” Well, neither had I. Everything was so right, and that felt _wrong_ because I’ve never felt anything other than lost. Can you understand that?’

David swallowed. He knew, deep down, that he could understand the man in front of him more than he ever wanted to understand anyone else. But this wasn’t the moment for it.

‘I know you think I’ve changed, that I’m some cold, city asshole or something, but it’s not true. I’m just even more lost than I was before. And you being here, bringing the store here and reminding me of everything I left behind…you don’t know what it’s doing to me, David. You don’t know what you’re doing to me.’

Somewhere between all of that, David had pressed closer to Patrick again. Perhaps it was an instinct to console him, to hold him.

_David. Read the room. You need to say this._

‘And do you know what you did to me, Patrick?’

The moment cracked. Absurdly, David thought of the crème brulee from earlier that night, only this interior was foul and bitter and full of all the things he should have said to everyone else.

‘You left me.’ David’s voice was as cold and hard as steel. ‘You looked me in the eye and fucked off in broad daylight when I told you not five minutes before that I was ready to get back together with you.’

Patrick stood up and moved back. His face was too blurred for David to analyse his micro-expressions, but he could see Patrick grip the kitchen counter in his periphery and that was enough for now. ‘Do you know what the next week was for me? The next month? The next _two years?’_

David let the moment hang, but not for so long that Patrick felt compelled to say something. He shook his head and opened his mouth in an ‘I –’, but David snatched it back.

‘It was the same,’ he said. ‘It was the same as it had been before I came to Schitt’s Creek. The same as before, tiring and empty and full of people who leave, and leave, and leave. And you know, it’s the saddest fucking thing, because this time around I actually waited. Out of all the times I’ve been left half-dressed at bus shelters and laughed out of beds and one step short of being tarred and fucking feathered, I waited for _you_. I guess I was just shocked. No one’s got away with pretending to be good for four whole months in a row without giving up the act before.’

Patrick had completely sobered, and so had David. David grabbed the unopened bottle of wine by the neck and swung out of the room with it. The slam of the door behind him was nowhere near as satisfying as he would have liked.

* * *

When he came back to his flat, it was dark except for one under-cabinet light in the kitchen. There was a little chocolate muffin from O’Finnegan’s sat on the countertop with a pink, heart-shaped sticky note from Alexis beside it.

I had a cake before I went out and ordered two by mistake. Habit. Lol! We have habits here now.

Promise I’ll be around more next week!

Alex-kiss

(xxx)

David hummed through his burgeoning tears at the small, Ted-like pun at the end of the note. At least he wasn’t the only one who still had someone else spilled over into their life.

He stepped into the kitchen to grab a fork for the cake. The dishwater from last night was still there, cold and grey and greasy. David knew he’d pulled the plug. It must have drifted back down, lured by the suction of the water and slotted perfectly into the place it was made for. _Ha._

It took him five minutes to eat the cake, ten to drain his first glass of wine, forty to finish the bottle and then one more to hit the bed.


	8. I Closed My Heart and Pretended I Could Not See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- This is a non-linear chapter in which Patrick falls asleep at the end at the same time David wakes up at the beginning. It's like: you see Christmas Day with David, then Christmas Eve with Patrick. Hope it doesn't read too oddly.

David was up early again. Not in the competent, park-runs-at-6am sort of way, but early in the way that the dark sky was so pitted and disorienting that not even his phone’s calendar could convince him it was Christmas Day. He bundled himself up in the impossibly fluffy purple blanket he’d recently bought for Alexis – her birthday had been the 16th – and crouched by the window. There wasn’t much of a window seat to speak of, so he settled for the floor.

He looked out at the city, ever hyperventilating with drunks and sirens, and thought about one of the last times he’d observed like this in the dead of night. He had been fifteen years old, staring out the largest window of the library in his wing of their old house. It was something he used to do often. There was no danger of anyone waking up; Alexis was probably still awake herself, and his parents were literally a mile away. He would weave around the circular table with its 300-year-old Scottish globe, move the brass telescope just an inch, and seat himself in the deep windowsill. Moonlight seemed to drip gently into the room, illuminating the rich leather backs of the books that no one else read. Sometimes it made him feel like the kind of princes he would read about. Sometimes it made him feel like crying.

It had been the loudest, maddest storm David had ever known, and still was. The sky was bleached white and purple with pulsing veins of lightning and smothered by the kind of thunder that crunched through wind, roaring as though it could rip the earth in half. David had it marked down in his head as the first moment where he’d ever really thought about something other than himself, his family or his house.

He’d had an assignment for school for the next day. Looking back, it seemed a bit pointless: they had to bring in a passage from one of the literary classics, read it out to the class and everyone would have to guess where it was from. A bit of a vanity project, in hindsight. An elite’s club where not even the teacher was exempt from the desperation to be the most intelligent, the most in-the-know. After leaving it too long to search for a quote that David would have deemed suitably obscure, he picked up a pen.

‘What is the meaning of this world, and our meaning within it? Are we heavy, deliberate, consequential, like the scream of storms? We see them now from the balconies we have built ourselves, at eyeline with the gods. How would they have felt 6000 years ago, the first people to summon the rain? Imagine living, then; imagine stamping and chanting at the precise moment that the skies opened and drenched your crops and your children and your skin. The pure, sweet shock of it. They must have wondered, _what are we? What power do we have over these skies? Who can hear us?’_

No one had guessed, just like no one had cared to notice the ink stains on David’s fingers or the dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t bothered to tell them, either. If there was a word to sum up his classmate’s reception towards him during school, it would probably be _ignored._

He hadn’t brought it with him, but he remembered the passage word-for-word. Perhaps the notebook it was in had once fallen victim to one of the bi-annual possession burnings that held a solid place in some bygone life.

*

‘Good morning and Yuletide felicitations, my sweet progeny!’ Moira cried, her voice producing a noise much louder than Alexis’ iPad looked like it could accommodate.

David smiled at the grainy image of his parents in their matching pyjamas on the screen. Behind them was a glimpse of the modest, warmly lit, ranch-style house they’d bought not long after moving to California.

‘It’s afternoon here now, Mom,’ Alexis said, grinning widely. ‘I just put our little turkey in the oven!’

David leaned over and flung a finger into the screen’s view. ‘Correction, _I_ just put the turkey in. Alexis is mashing potatoes.’

‘Don’t forget the scallions!’ Johnny said. ‘That’s what made Adelina’s taste so good. Before I forget, kids, did you get your gifts in the mail?’

Alexis and David shared a glance. ‘Yup, we did. Thanks, Dad.’

Johnny had sent them cookbooks designed for college students and some ‘room decorations’ that were definitely feather toys for cats. It had made them both laugh, but it was filtered through a gush of fondness for their father and his terrible gift giving.

The Rose’s decision to spend Christmas apart this year had been made pretty easily and amicably. They all recognized what the past four years had done for them as a family, but the need to be a little further than a newspaper-stuffed walls’ worth of space apart was bordering on a human right at this point. Alexis and David had been spending a lot more time together over the past few weeks, enjoying a mutual, new-found love of a humbler version of Christmas that had seen their flat decorated with warm reds and greens and their fridge stocked with comfort food.

‘David?’

‘Hm?’

‘I asked if you thought the turkey was dry.’

‘If I thought the turkey was – oh.’ David picked at his half-eaten meal. ‘No, it’s fine.’

‘So why are you just pushing it around your plate?’

Alexis was giving David the same look she’d spared for him a dozen times a day since he told her what had happened with Patrick. He resigned himself to it. He supposed the past month hadn’t been entirely festive and wholesome.

_Scratch that, it’s been a fucking circus._

He’d been going to the synagogue more recently for Hanukkah celebrations and letting Alexis drag him out to some of the bars she’d discovered, but it hadn’t done much for him. His outburst at Patrick’s had felt like forcibly resetting a bone after years of injury; the pale, shaking sensation at his core hadn’t abandoned him since he slammed the apartment door, and no amount of prayer or pink gin could assuage that.

‘You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?’

David shrugged. ‘It’s Christmas. You’re meant to think about things at Christmas.’

‘I get it. I’ve been thinking too.’

Suddenly, David was doused in a wave of guilt.

‘I…fuck, Alexis, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…’ David stopped pretending to be hungry and pushed his plate away. ‘I’ve been so selfish this month, moping around when you’re going through the same shit.’

Alexis shook him off quickly. ‘Mm, that’s a strong nope, David. We are _not_ going through the same thing, and I won’t let you believe that. I miss Ted, but we’re definitely over. For you, it’s different. You’re hurt, but you don’t want things to end. And I don’t think Patrick does either. You’re waiting for the right time to go back to the thing that hurt you, and let it heal you instead. Sometimes that happens. Because love kind of sucks.’

David laughed at that, though his throat was painfully tight. He looked up at Alexis again, his brow creased in half-seriousness.

‘How do you know I don’t want it to be over?’

Alexis tilted her head like it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘You just have all this…this _tenderness_ for him, David.’

Silence.

‘I know. I never seem to run out of it.’

* * *

Pulling into the driveway of his childhood home on Christmas Eve was like letting go of a ton weight that Patrick didn’t realise he’d been holding for two years. It had been so long since he was here that it filled him with shame to see that things hadn’t changed. There were still a few splinters in the picket fence and a baseball was still jammed in the hedge as though he’d only got it stuck in there yesterday. His parents had stayed here, patient and loving, while he’d skipped town after town like a reckless, desctructive stone that wanted everything and nothing at the same time.

His mother’s kind, sad face at the door was almost enough to make him break down.

‘My sweet boy.’

Patrick let himself become enveloped in a firm hug. The baking gloves on Marcy Brewer’s hands were hot. She’d just taken something out of the oven.

She held Patrick at an arm’s length, taking him in. ‘You’ve changed so much. Look at you, doing so much with yourself in the big city. I’m so proud of you.’

_You shouldn’t be._

Patrick smiled at her, waving hello to his father in the hallway.

As it turned out, it was a sausage and bean casserole that Marcy had been taking out of the oven. Patrick’s favorite. It tasted like the time he’d split his shin on his friend’s ice hockey skates when he was eleven, and it tasted like the first breakup he’d had with Rachel. For that matter, it also tasted like the last breakup he’d had with Rachel. It was a comfort meal, one his mother always started to rustle up as soon as she heard Patrick coming through the door slower than usual.

He’d settled into a comfortable routine that night with his parents, helping Clint with the mulled wine and Facetiming his cousins and watching their usual movies, but something was still nagging at Patrick that not even Christmas Eve traditions could get rid of.

He was glad his dad always went to bed earlier. He had some of his best conversations at night with his mom, just the two of them in the silence of their comfortable home.

‘Why did you make _that_ meal for when I came home, Mom?’ Patrick said.

Marcy’s smile was both knowing and apologetic. ‘I just felt like you’d need it.’

‘After what?’

There was a moment of silence. ‘Well…if I’m being honest, Pat, I don’t really know. I’ve felt like whisking you home and making it for you every time I’ve been on the phone for the past two years.’

There it was again. That raw, Marcy Brewer honesty that made Patrick realize far too much more about himself than he was comfortable with. It took him about two minutes to register that her words had made him collapse into tears, pressure releasing like a shaken bottle as he told her everything. Everything that had happened in the past two years. And the past four months before that. The store, his hikes, realizing he was gay, his and David's relationship, the open mic, the cookie, the way they’d steal moments in the breakroom. Scared of the way David would strike him blind like the sun, scared of the way he was a little bit in love with him.

Marcy had him close, shushing him, stroking over his curly hair and black shirt, her own hands shaking a little with overwhelm and empathy.

‘And I was scared to tell you _,_ as well,’ Patrick choked out between sobs. ‘I thought it– it was such a d-dumb thing _not_ to realize after so long. I finally had it all figured out, then I started overthinking and I ruined it.’

‘Honey, what have you ruined?’

‘David, for a start. He trusted me. I told him to trust me. He was already so broken. He let me know him, and then it’s like I ran off with the last piece of him. And nothing I do will ever bring it back.’

Marcy shook her head. She pressed a kiss to Patrick’s temple. His breathing evened out.

‘Listen to me carefully. I can’t deny that you made a bad decision.’

‘Several,’ Patrick corrected. It was a little more light-hearted.

Marcy chuckled. ‘Okay, several. But they weren’t made by the Patrick I know. You’ve been running in circles trying to find yourself, when you were never gone to start with. I’m so glad you’ve come home, my sweet boy. You need it. And you need to figure out what you want.’

‘How do I even begin to figure that out?’

‘How about you try answering, quick-fire? Now…where do you really want to be?’

‘Somewhere smaller. Not New York.’

‘And are you ready to give up with David?’

‘No.’

Marcy hummed, as though she’d answered something for him. There was a pause.

‘Now, last question, and this one is very important…do you want a haircut?’

Patrick squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. ‘Yes. Please.’

Having a hairdresser for a mother had guaranteed Patrick free haircuts right up until he moved away. They stuck an all-night channel on the TV with the volume low as Patrick sat on the floor between Marcy’s legs like he had when he was a kid, half-watching the old _Golden Girls_ episode that was playing. It used to be his mom’s favorite show, so it always filled Patrick with a bit of comfort in a grainy 90s TV resolution, floral prints sort of way. The only other thing Patrick could feel was the gentle pull and snip of hair as his mother's warm, careful hands returned it back to how it had always been.

The clock hit midnight.

‘Oh, look. Merry Christmas,’ Marcy whispered.

‘Merry Christmas, Mom.’

When she had finished and they’d both retreated upstairs, Patrick padded into the bathroom and locked the door behind him quietly. As the shower warmed up, he looked at himself in the mirror. The high-maintenance and very-much-not-him New York hairdo was gone, replaced by one that had been beneath it the whole time.

He didn’t break eye contact with himself as he unbuttoned the stiff black shirt, shrugging it off his shoulders and stretching them out. He folded it gently and put it in the washing basket. He kept looking until he could feel the steam rising from behind the shower curtain, then blissfully thought of nothing as he coaxed himself through the motions of a night-time routine. Once he’d scrubbed the city off his back, he dried himself off and changed into an old, comfortable blue sweater that he’d had since he was about nineteen, put on some pyjama pants and crawled into bed.

_‘Okay, so this is weird.’_

_Patrick looked at David. ‘What is? Are you not comfortable?’_

_‘No, I am! That’s why it’s so weird.’_

_Patrick curled into David’s side, the man who had only yesterday become his boyfriend._

_‘I’ve never just…slept with someone before,’ David continued, a little awkwardly, as though it was an embarrassing piece of information. ‘I’ve never gone to bed with someone and not had sex. Never just said goodnight and let them hold me.’_

_Patrick’s heart beat a little faster. He wondered if David would be worried about the feel of it, worry that it was one of those panicked, commitment-issues heartbeats he’d heard beneath a hundred chests before, so Patrick pulled him closer to try and extinguish the thought._

_‘And is that a good thing?’ Patrick said, his voice husky and low and full of the love that neither had yet verbally expressed. He already knew the answer._

_‘It’s a very good thing,’ David smiled. ‘Goodnight, Patrick.’_

Patrick wondered if David would be asleep by now, curled up tight and snuffling in the way that used to make Patrick glad to know a world with such a gentle, beautiful thing in it. He wondered if David would be up early or late in the morning. As his eyelids grew heavier, he coursed a hand through his shortened hair. Slowly, very slowly, the thought of him didn’t hurt so much.

_‘Goodnight, David.’_


	9. Alters Not With Its Brief Hours and Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I can only apologize for the length of this chapter. It got out of hand. I tried splitting it in two, but it wouldn't chop right no matter how many ways I tried.  
> \- And even then, there's still so much more I wish I could've fit in!  
> \- I am fully aware that the chapter length has been very inconsistent, but hey. It's a messy story, I'm a messy person.

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep –_

_Thump._

David opened his eyes to find his vision blocked by a thrown pillow.

‘David, if you don’t answer your phone and put an end to that ugly little ringtone of yours, I am going to throw it _and you_ out of the window.’

David swatted an arm at his bedside table. His gut twisted with that oh-shit-I’m-late panic at the sight of Rosa’s name lighting up his phone.

‘What kind of serial killer is phoning you at 7 in the morning, anyway?’ Alexis said, storming back to her room.

David laughed with irony. _One I hired to bump me off._

‘Yes?’ he said, perhaps a little too harshly. ‘Sorry. Hi. Hello. I’m definitely awake.’

‘David, hi!’ Rosa said with the vigor of someone who hadn’t spent the last three weeks planning her own wedding, orchestrating a move and, by the looks of her Etsy account, making hundreds of floral resin necklaces as well as finding the time to call David every couple of hours in between. David decided that when they had kids (and that was a certain _when,_ because Paul had once told David that it simply said ‘have first child’ at the end of their five-year plan), they would definitely be the kind of parents who packed trail mix in their lunchboxes.

‘What did you decide?’ David said, re their conversation last night. Rosa had told him that they were coming to a definite decision about at least one of their life choices before the morning.

‘We’ve decided to push the wedding forward a little. It’s going to be at the beginning of February.’

‘Okay, that’s –’

‘In Staten Island, so Paul’s mom can go.’

‘Wait, Staten Isl –’

‘And we’ll be moving there a few days before!’

What.

The.

Fuck.

David felt like he’d been clamped in a vice. He was 99% certain that Paul had said he was from _Sacramento._ 98%. 97%. 6%.

It didn’t matter. There was a bit of a fucking difference there. He’d been spending the past three weeks thinking about Rose Apothecary stores in California. How was he meant to keep up with Rosa and Paul’s efficient-to-a-fault planning? What was going to happen to the store in Schitt’s Creek?

That last thought made David feel a little sick. He managed to catch the end of Rosa’s sentence where she was telling him to look over the email she’d sent him, then hung up.

Reeling with a million different ideas, David scanned the email and then forwarded it without thinking:

To: **p.brewer@advicealliance.org**

Subject: Mine and Paul’s plans! 😊

Fwd: PATRICK HELP

It was only once he’d pressed Send and watched the ‘Undo’ option disappear after five seconds that David realized what he’d done.

He and Patrick hadn’t spoken since that night in his apartment. Apart from one very depersonalised email exchange, there’d been nothing ever since he’d run Patrick into the ground with the harshest things he’d ever said to anyone. And now he’d sent him an email asking for help as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

The day had barely begun and everything had just got a whole lot messier. He turned his head back into his pillow, had a good scream, then flipped his brain onto autopilot and started the day. There was only one place he really needed to be right now. He’d sent the offending email to Patrick’s work address. In his work office. Patrick, presumably, would also be in his work office. Kill two birds with one stone.

He only tuned back into his brain when he was pacing down the trippy hallway towards Patrick’s office, muttering a rehearsed explanation under his breath.

‘Didn’t know who to ask about this. Started researching Sacramento. Paul and Rosa have their shit together a little too tightly.’

He knocked on the door.

There was a soft, ‘Come in.’ 

David stepped inside, finding very quickly that he had to hold back a gasp.

Patrick was just…there. With his hair. And his blue. And his eyes, no longer hidden by glasses.

It was like walking into Ray’s office all over again, only Patrick was already here this time, not called in from the back and not knowing what to expect.

Something unreadable flashed across Patrick’s own features when David walked in. David tried a polite smile, pulling his sweater sleeves over his hands and nestling into them for comfort.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Before you say anything, I’m sorry I randomly loaded that email on you at 7am, but I just –’

‘You’d just be too overwhelmed to leave it any later, I know,’ Patrick said. David felt himself unravel at the timbre of his voice. He understood him. ‘Why d’you think I’m here so early?’

David went offline for a second. Then the realization jolted him back like an electric shock.

‘You knew I’d come here?’

Patrick shrugged. ‘If something like that happened to me, I know who I’d want to turn to.’

Patrick had already shot a few emails back and forth with Rosa, trying to catch up with their exact plans. David allowed himself to let off steam in the office; he knew Patrick, patient and predictable, wouldn’t mind. He felt a twinge of guilt as he ranted about how much he hated the new store and how Paul had loved it when he showed him a photo and how he had no idea what was going on so he’d just thrown on some jeans and he’d been in a rush and actually _slept_ in this sweater, can you believe it, Patrick, and –

Patrick sat silently and listened, taking it all in. His eyes were warm and gentle.

‘From a business point of view, David, one thing I could make really easy for you is negotiating a management switch between yourself and Rosa. It would mean moving away from New York – is that something you’d…?’

David considered. ‘I mean…there’s not much keeping me here besides Alexis. It’s pretty much been one shitshow after the other since I got here.’

They shared a knowing smile, a world of _I’m sorrys_ and _I knows_ and _it’s okays_ encased in a single look.

‘To be honest, me neither,’ Patrick said hesitantly. ‘My only friend here quit the other day.’

David let the moment hang a second.

‘So…if you were to theoretically move away from here, and it was theoretically one of your last nights…’ he said, not entirely sure where he was going with this, ‘where would you…theoretically go?’

Patrick smirked. ‘Why, where would _you_ theoretically go?’

* * *

There was a complimentary glass of wine in his hand that someone had bought for him with a wink. The richness of it, like earth and blood, coated his tongue vividly as he scanned the room. Took in his audience. There was a figure stood at the edge of the usual crowd. Simply there. Off to the side. His own flute of something fizzy was balanced delicately between his long fingers.

Patrick’s guitar felt moulded to his hands all of a sudden. _There_ it was. The moment. Easing in around him, around them, as bright and cool as the cutting glass-edge of moonlight that traced the windows of the bar. He hadn’t forced it this time, either. David had come to _The Smoke Kitchen_ all on his own.

‘I’m gonna have to cut this set short, folks, but you’ve been wonderful as always,’ Patrick said, shooting a look to Rahim. He winked back. A hand shot out from the kitchen and pressed a dollar into his hand. Rahim held up a finger of the other one and mouthed, _one more. I dare you._

Patrick made a show of looking at his watch. ‘Actually, you know what? I think I’ve got time to do one more. There’s not much out there for me anyway, by the looks of it.’

The audience laughed a little, each filtering that through their own interpretation. Perhaps they thought he was talking about the late time or the cold weather. Perhaps some girl had dropped him at some bar and he was here to sing about it.

They never would have banked on the tall, willowy, terrifyingly beautiful stranger stood at the side of the bar, all ‘80s call-back black-and-white plaid pants and untouchably perfect hair.

Patrick downed the wine. His fingers started to play. He caught up with them a moment later:

‘It’s what my heart just yearns to say, in ways that can’t be said

It’s what my rotting bones will sing when the rest of me is dead

It’s what’s engraved upon my heart in letters deeply worn

Today I somehow understand the reason I was born

I promised you I’d fight them all when it all became too much

I curse the world for leaving us behind, for falling out of touch

I’ve seen enough, I know exactly what I want

And it’s this life that we created

Inundated with the fated thought of you

And if you asked me to, I’d lose it all like petals in a storm

And if you asked me to, I’d come back in, loved and gently worn

I don’t need to pretend to be someone I’m not

And for some godforsaken reason

I’m still here, love, like I’ve always been before…’

Some sleepy part of his brain thought he recognized the words, but he wasn’t sure anyone in the audience did. He raked through his mental folder of original songs about David. It wasn’t there. He had made it up on the spot.

David was still there, his face flustered and breathless like the dawning of a new day. It wasn’t perfect, the song, but neither were they. And David knew it was his.

He didn’t hurry to him as soon as the performance ended. Things seemed simpler; as though the world had sighed around him and he’d followed suit, suddenly finding himself in possession of some hoard of time that he hadn’t known about before.

Sometimes, the thought of David was so tremendous and strange that Patrick struggled to find analogies for the way he felt. It led him to the absurdest places. Right now he was thinking of a Boy Scout’s camping trip he’d been on when he was twelve, and they’d all been told to put their Gameboys in a locked chest at the start of the trip. The only connection to the outside world was the rickety old phone in the ranger’s office. There was something so blissful about having your life all in one place, even for a week; safe, warm, sure that the trees weren’t going to up and leave in the night. That was how he felt on his way over to David. If the bar had fallen apart around them, if New York had fallen apart around them, he thought he might have been okay with it.

And then Patrick was there, right in front of him. And he took the champagne flute from David’s hand. And he wasn’t sure why.

And Patrick kissed him.

It was embarrassingly clumsy. He’d leaned in the wrong way, and David was still pressed against the wall so there was no way Patrick could grasp for purchase on his shoulders or waist. And that was something he’d always needed to do when he kissed David. It was like he was a drowning man, and David was both water and air.

So he kissed him, soft and chaste then hungry, open, endless. He pulled back before he had a chance to mess it up. Any lingering worry about what he’d done was quelled by the warmth and wildness in David’s eyes, drinking in the sight of him like he was a holy thing. And David _sighed_ , and it was so quiet that no one could have possibly heard, and Patrick was just as far gone as he had been two years ago when David had sauntered into his office and called him impatient and sure of himself.

_Well, I’ve been patient now. And there’s not been a second of it where I was sure of myself. What does that leave us with?_

They didn’t speak.

There was no need.

_There will be time for that,_ Patrick thought. _Maybe we’ll talk tomorrow._

He could feel it, even now in the midst of the fear that he’d done something wrong. He could feel all the time, all the deliciously unspent time, doubtful and imperfect yet so perfectly real. It was as though all the conversations that would ever be, all the touches yet to come, all the moments waiting past the wooden walls of the bar, were wrapped around their shoulders.

‘I quit my job,’ Patrick finally breathed.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good.’

They kissed again, starved and giddy and thankful that they had both managed to land themselves existences at the _same time,_ because it seemed so unreal to so deep a love as this.

* * *

‘Hello? It’s Patrick. Yes, Patrick Brewer. I’m calling to double check that you received my email. And my notice. Yep. Mm. Yeah. Okay. For a meeting? Yeah, I can do Tuesday. It’s been a pleasure working with you too. Bye.’

For the first time in his life, Patrick Brewer had nothing to do.

There was no work in his diary anymore; no meetings, no consultants, no hours staring at the white wall drinking lukewarm water from a paper cup. He’d washed his dishes and hoovered the floor. He’d spoken to his landlord about his tenancy, not entirely sure why. And now he was here, looking out of his window after a morning in Central Park, still buzzing with the aftershocks of last night, slightly embarrassed (but also not embarrassed at all) that a single meeting had sent him into such a frenzy.

He looked at the texts he’d received throughout the day:

[Received 10:42am]

**Amanda Stone**

We were both too young for that place anyway. Cheers to new beginnings! Drinks soon?

[Received 11:02am]

**Rahim Aziz**

YOOOOOO I saw u last night 👀 the bets have been fun, but I’m happy for you, man!

[Received 3:27pm]

**Mom**

I’m proud of you, my sweet boy. Now I think you know what you need to do.

[Sent 4:53pm]

**Patrick Brewer**

Cheers to you too! How does tomorrow night sound?

**Patrick Brewer**

👀 👀 👀

**Patrick Brewer**

I love you, mom.

As he sent the last text, another one came through:

[4:54pm]

**David Rose**

Guess what I’ve found

Patrick looked at the message and felt like someone had tied the thinnest fly-fishing bait behind his navel and was tugging gently. It was playful, the kind of text David used to send in the early days of their relationship. It wasn’t so much a _guess_ as a _come and get me._

**Patrick Brewer**

…Ominous, much?

**David Rose**

Bet you can’t guess what it issssssss

**Patrick Brewer**

Unexploded WWII bomb? Dead guy in the room next door? 😉

After five minutes, Patrick’s phone pinged with a shared location. Before he knew what he was doing, he had filled a bag and was practically tripping out of his apartment to get there.

As he rounded the final corner to the address David had sent him, Patrick’s finger hovered over the ‘call’ button on his contact. He stopped in the street for a moment, laughing as he realized he was genuinely considering playing dumb and lost just to hear David’s voice when he would hear it in less than five minutes. And then _that_ thought made him feel a little sick with anticipation, so he sped up again.

God, he was a wreck.

He arrived outside a tall, wide-windowed building in a part of town that Rahim had introduced to him as ‘pretentious’ when he’d given him the tour. Uncertainly, he pressed the button that had a sticker of an arrow next to it. The intercom buzzed and the door clicked open.

By the second flight of stairs, Patrick had grown more confused. But there were still more arrows, so he kept following them. He reached the top and was greeted by a double door with sea cabin windows.

He had been expecting…something. Something secret and quiet except for him and David, but it hadn’t been this.

The room behind the heavy doors was bare. White and bare and abandoned, like someone had ransacked a Whole Foods and left behind the pretentious minimalism of something that had been trying so desperately not to be a grocery store. Like the new Rose Apothecary, the walls were rutted at angles, and the spaces where art had been were painted over and shrouded and laid to rest.

At the helm of it all, on a raised platform like Michelangelo’s David, stood a very real one. He had his arms outstretched like he was showing off the room; a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture, complete with a marble-colored sweater.

‘Welcome,’ he said, unable to keep the jest out of his voice, ‘to the illustrious art gallery of one David Rose.’

Patrick burst out laughing.

‘Are you serious? This is – this used to be all yours?’

‘ _Used_ to be?’ David mock-gasped. ‘I’ll have you know this is the most vacuous of establishments in this fine city.’

‘You know vacuous means empty, right?’

David didn’t break character. ‘I said what I said.’

He hopped down from the platform and gestured to the large white cube in the middle of the room. ‘As the spectator enters the room, their gaze is drawn to the largest example of meaningless life capable of existing in such a city as this. On it lies nothing at all. The gallerist is unsure whether anything ever did.’

Patrick’s stomach hurt from laughing as David dragged him round a melodramatic tour of the empty gallery, occasionally playing along as the pretentious patron.

‘At some point, David, are you gonna tell me why we’re here?’

David held up a finger. ‘Patience. All will be revealed. There’s just one last part of the tour you need to see.’

David crossed the room to the fire exit and held out his hand. Patrick took it. It was cold, but his grip was strong.

He let David lead him up a thin grey ladder, then there was one rather scary pull before Patrick rolled onto concrete and was hit by a gust of cold wind.

He took a moment to adjust, then realized they were on the rooftop. And suddenly it wasn’t the wind that had knocked all the breath out him.

The roof was covered what looked like a Persian blanket, about the size of a king bed. Propped up above it was another, thinner sheet, laced with string lights that made the fort glitter with a gentle warmth. The top of the makeshift gazebo had been rolled back for a full view of the city skyline, and plush pillows were laid at the edge of the blanket.

‘Wow,’ Patrick breathed. ‘When did you have time to do all of this?’

‘Y’know, just gradually during the day,’ David said casually. ‘Turns out there’s not much to do after you decide it’s your last week here.’

Patrick eyed him. ‘So you came to a decision, huh?’

‘Mm-hm. Rosa and Paul are going to manage the store here when they move, and I’m going to take over back home.’

They sat down. Patrick pulled the backpack off him and unzipped it.

‘I had no idea where you were asking me to come, so I just brought whatever I thought would see me through the night,’ Patrick explained. David laughed at the absurd mix of white wine, nuts and crackers that Patrick had brought.

‘I think I can match you on those,’ David said with a wink. In his own bag, he’d packed brie, half of a baguette and some Hershey’s.

* * *

They unpacked the food in silence, taking in the view as they spread brie over the crackers and clinked plastic wine glasses. David sat back, leaning against the blanket as he took in the sight of the city that was just going to sleep and waking up.

‘So,’ he said, finally.

Patrick looked at him. ‘So.’

There was plenty they hadn’t said. Even for the undeniable sense that they had more time now than they ever had, they still needed to address why they’d both quit their jobs and were left dangling, both achingly sure of the answer yet neither willing to verbalise it.

‘Is Alexis okay with you moving back?’ Patrick said.

_Alexis had held his face, tearstained in all the best ways, in her hands when he’d come back last night. Go to him, she’d said. You know where you need to be._

‘I think so,’ David said. ‘She’s clever. She knows what she’s doing in this city more than I do.’

Patrick smiled. ‘Probably more than I do, as well.’

‘I’ll definitely miss the feeling of opening a new business, but I think I’ll be okay.’ Then, shakily, as though he were dipping his toe in the water, David continued. ‘You know, one of the reasons I was so glad you first went into business with me was because I finally got a chance to share that feeling.’

There was a silence. It was assumed, if Patrick were anything other than completely entranced by David right now, he would have said ‘go on’, or ‘yeah? What feeling?’ But he was silent, and he was listening.

‘I’ve spent my whole life making things for myself and showing them off, even if it was in pretence or paid for by my parents,’ David continued. ‘Writing. Drawing. My gallery, all the art I would show. No matter how lonely I was, or who had spat in my face the day before opening night – literally, on one occasion – I used to love standing there with the applause and the vol-au-vents, feeling like some corner of this world was finally mine. After being so used to having everything laid out for me, it was like having some warm arms round my waist and a chin on my shoulder saying, “You did it.”’

Patrick was still quiet. The air felt suspended, now, though; as though David’s words thickened the bubble around them, sat cold yet content on a dirty concrete roof with a picnic blanket and string lights that glittered against the hard, orange blush of the setting sky. Somewhere a couple of blocks away, a horn blared.

‘That’s what you were to me.’

It was so faint that David barely heard it. He lifted his glass to his lips, then set it down before he’d barely got a taste of the sweet, dry wine.

‘What?’

‘That. The warm arms, and the– the head, or whatever. The way you would come up to me in the store when it was quiet and you’d shush me like you could feel my stress. That was the way you held me when I came down from the stage at the open mic. We didn’t look at each other, we didn’t talk, but we just knew. And you didn’t let me go. You gave me that sense of accomplishment that you’re talking about. I came staggering out a world of people who would tell me what home was as though it was an order. You would hold me, and in that I learned that it could be anything I want. It could be stacking cheese in the fridge and pissing you off with monthly gifts. I had so many more stupid gifts to give. I…’

David felt Patrick shift, and suddenly he knew what Patrick wanted. What he needed. He lifted an arm.

‘It’s okay, I’ve got you steady,’ David murmured as Patrick sunk back into him, the weight of a million minutes seeping into the air, rushed off by the wind into the large, mauve-gray expanse of New York City.

‘I _have_ so much more to give,’ Patrick said. ‘You know, I came here, and I think it broke my heart.’

David felt limp with emotion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I think I really _felt_ , for the first time. I moved out of the place where I’d been living numb for thirty years and into the city, and I started to realize that I was running away from everything into nothing. I realized that nothing is just good or bad, that everything is both. And if I want one, I have to deal with the other. It was heavy and scary and I felt like my bones were aching at the thought of all the things I’d done: leaving Rachel, my parents, lying to my friends, then leaving you. I’ve just been blocking it out. All this…all of this heavy humanness.’

David took Patrick by the waist, hooking his chin over Patrick’s shoulder. He felt the tears begin to fall.

‘I ran because that’s all I know. Things get bad, I run away from it. I’ve never sat with that much pain before without upping sticks and changing things, hoping it might make it better if I just break things off with people or quit my job or skip town. I want to sit with the pain, David. I want this to hurt, I want it to feel bad. I want things to get worse before they get better. It’ll all be worth it if you can be there at the end of it.’

They were both crying now, the air a blur of salty tears and wine.

‘But you stopped off on the way, didn’t you?’ David said quietly, because it was the only thing he could think of. ‘You found somewhere for a while. Just a little place, but…enough.’

‘You’re right, I did.’

‘Could it be enough again?’ _Could I be enough again?_

Patrick’s head fell gently onto the space between David’s collarbone and his chest. ‘Do you think it’ll still be there when we get back?’ he whispered.

David cracked at the core. Melted.

‘It might be, if we can catch it before the spring,’ he whispered back. ‘Are you ready to go home, Patrick?’

‘I am. I really am. And you? Would you like that too?’

David took in the evening skyline as though it were one of the last times he would see it. The old books and musings of his adolescence stretched and yawned in his head. This was the kind of thing he might write about:

_I can’t think of anything better than to be with you all the time, without interruption, even though there’s no place in this world where I can love you enough undisturbed, as I would like. I dream of a warm home, deep and floral and narrow, where we can one day clasp each other in our arms, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me and no one would ever see us anymore. I think you might be the life and death of me._

But he couldn’t say all that out loud. He’d have to let it slip out between the years, in actions rather than words.

‘David?’

David swallowed.

‘Yeah. I think I’d like that a lot.’


	10. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Thank you very much to everyone who has given me support right to the very end of this fic! I've had so much fun writing it and I'm really glad everyone has enjoyed.  
> \- I'd also like to extend special thanks again to @blackandwhiteandrose, for your wonderfully sharp responses to each and every chapter. Never have I enjoyed critique so much. It's kept me going!

* * *

Two Years Later

* * *

It was always going to end up like this.

David had woken up early. He’d discovered that tended to happen when your bedroom window was bigger than it had ever been, letting more sun in. You woke up bathed in it, bathed in life.

 _David,_ he had whispered. And David thought he might never get tired of that sound. _Come here, love._

The blankets shifted. A hand found its way to David’s.

 _Cold?_ Patrick had said, another hand stroking down David’s back.

_A bit. You took the covers off me last night._

_You could have woken me. We should get up soon, anyway._

_Mm, no,_ he’d protested. _Don’t wanna get up yet._

 _You do, though,_ Patrick had said, and there was so much warmth in it, so much heart that David had had to turn around and press his face into his husband’s soft white T-shirt, breathe him in. _You want to get up and get breakfast with me. We can get berry compote and yogurt. Or waffles, if we have any mix left._

Patrick had a knack for knowing what foods David wanted and when. Warm brie on toasted baguettes as they bickered their way through baking shows, popcorn dusted with paprika and sundried tomato as they camped out on the neat grass of their garden, the veranda strung up with lights. Berry compotes on slow, sunny mornings like this one.

We have rituals now, David realized as he made his way onto the front porch, dangling his legs from the veranda. He had sipped sweet coffee and watched Patrick clip back the rosebush until midday.

 _That’s the third time you’ve done that this week,_ David had said. _I think you’re just looking for an excuse to look like that hot new presenter on Recreating Eden._

 _Psh, I could do anything he does,_ Patrick had boasted. _He wouldn’t look half as good in these shorts anyway._

Rituals, traded quietly in the day like secret notes, arms pressed and noses touching as they passed from hand to hand. Bickering. Bantering. The soft morning kisses that tasted like coffee and the lingering, sleep-warm kisses of the night. David watched Patrick stand at the edge of the garden gate, worn and windswept in the September sun, observing the day’s peak with his hands on his hips. David let him stand by himself. They have their own habits; they have their own traditions.

_I love you, my God, I love you and it just keeps going. It’s banked, it’s quiet, it’s full of the edges of the earth yet never budges past these four stone walls. Is this what it is? To over-proof, spill over?_

Patrick had showered after that, his rich, low singing drifting gently downstairs as David tossed spinach and feta and pine nuts and laid them places outside to eat. They ate outside when they could. Better if they could find a decent roof, but so far that had been saved for anniversaries.

 _What are you making today?_ Patrick had asked, like he did every day. Just as David made lunch every day.

 _Salad,_ he’d replied. _Nothing special._

 _It’s all special,_ Patrick had said, and David had thought about their meals, then, and how they’d managed to trap the significance of them as if under a glass. It was a simple way to reconnect, really, but it did the trick. This old recipe of us, nothing new under the sun.

 _What do you think we should have for dinner?_ David had said. Perhaps he’d said it because he was genuinely interested. Perhaps he’d said it because he never imagined that the biggest thought of his day would be what his husband – his _husband_ – might be making him for dinner.

Patrick had laughed; the laugh that meant he was absolutely certain he was never going anywhere ever again. _I can’t believe you’re thinking about your next meal while you’re in the middle of one._

But Patrick had answered him anyway, when lunch had finished. They were letting themselves snooze in the hammock that David had almost begged Patrick to buy. Not that he had to beg him for much.

David was holding him now, the man in his arms worn out from taking care of their garden all morning. He took the top button of Patrick’s soft shirt between his thumb and forefinger and eased it open. He did the same for the next one. Then he slipped his hand beneath the shirt to touch Patrick’s warm, freckled skin, laying a flat, sure palm between auburn hairs, the contact between them like a deep breath.

 _I bought some pies from the butcher’s in Elmdale when I was there yesterday,_ Patrick murmured in answer. _We can pick some peas to go with them. Open a new bottle of that wine._

David knew exactly how the night would go, and yet he had no idea. That was the beauty of it; that was making a home. He would probably get overwhelmed at it all again. He always did.

_How does it still feel like this, like warmth on warmth on warmth, each time you touch me? Did we know it would lead to this, between hands touched and glances and second chances and time? I think we did. I think someone did, even if it wasn't always us._

And there, David decided that a million futures had not died the day that Patrick left. They were merely thrown into the air, carded through the many fingers of a richly-rewarding, hard-earned god. Perhaps he would have ended up staying. Perhaps it would have been a year, or two, or ten more before they were reunited. All that mattered was that it was always going to end up like this. The mornings, the garden and its roses; the future defined by nothing but themselves, and hammocks, and pies, and the endless, hopeful promise of the stars.


End file.
